What causes heart disease part forty-five

I did say I was going to talk about strain and mental health next, but so many people have commented on vitamins and supplements, that I thought I should cover this area. I must say that I do like vitamins, I like the idea of them – and my mother did make me take vitamin C tablets every morning. So, perhaps she is to blame for my early age mental programming.

However, there is very little good evidence that any vitamin supplement is beneficial. In large part this is because there are not huge profits to be made from selling vitamins, as they cannot be patented.

If a company did a major clinical trial on vitamin K, and found that it saved lives, there would be nothing to stop anyone else selling vitamin K, whilst claiming the newly discovered health benefits for themselves. The company that took the financial risk, and funded the trials, would be unable to recoup any research costs.

Another factor in play here is that the pharmaceutical industry is doing its level best to attack vitamins as damaging and dangerous, and lobbying madly to have vitamin supplements banned.1

Once they achieve this state of Nirvana, they can then invent new synthetic vitamins, patent them, and sell them back to us at hugely inflated prices, making massive profits. I just made that bit up, but I wouldn’t put it past them. What they are more likely to do is to add vitamins to various other drugs, to extend patent life. As Merck attempted to do with statins and niacin – and failed.

Another of the problems in trying to get a handle on the potential benefits of vitamins, is that it can be very unclear what the optimal dose, or blood levels, might be. This, I believe is because of the way that vitamins were first discovered.

Over many hundreds of years, it was noticed that some diseases occurred when ‘something’ was missing from the diet. Scurvy was the first of these diseases to be well documented. In 1753 a Scottish surgeon first proposed that lemons and limes could prevent and/or cure the condition. Obviously, he had no idea what it was in the limes and lemons that did the trick.

Other diseases such as pellagra and rickets were then identified as being due to a lack of a substance, of some sort. The term for theses missing substances was coined as ‘vital – amines’. Shortened to vitamins.

It took some time before the vitamins themselves were isolated. The first was vitamin B1, in 1910, the last was vitamin B12 in 1948. There are generally accepted to be thirteen vitamins, many of them are B vitamins, of one sort or another. However, in my opinion there are only twelve. Vitamin D is really a hormone.

I think vitamin D was only classified as a vitamin because no-one knew that it could be synthesized in the skin, from sunlight. Whilst people lived mainly outside, there was no vitamin D deficiency, it was only when the industrial revolution started, and people began to live and work indoors that rickets, (bent malformed bones) became an epidemic. A lack of vitamin D in the diet was identified as the cause.

Thus, Vitamin D looked and acted like a dietary vitamin deficiency, but it was not actually a dietary vitamin deficiency. Or at least only in part. To prevent rickets, children were given milk. Unfortunately, we are now seeing rickets again, because darker skinned Muslim women now fully cover up their skin, and some of them are becoming severely vitamin D depleted.

The reason for this ramble, is to make the general point that vitamins were only identified when major, immediate, and potentially life-threatening illness were identified. Which meant that the first task was the find the dose, or blood level, that prevented things like scurvy and rickets and pellagra. At the time researchers were not looking for longer term effects e.g. prevention of CVD, or cancer, or suchlike. Which means that there is no recommended daily allowance that takes optimal health into account.

I sometimes think of the recommended daily intake of vitamins as being just enough to keep you alive, but no more. A bit like having houseplant that is small and shrivelled. But if you give it some form of plant feed, it bursts into vigorous growth, and is far healthier.

Unfortunately, because we have these hallowed recommended daily intakes, vitamins are viewed by the medical profession as very simple things. You give the vitamin, make sure it gets above a baseline level in the blood, and that’s that. Nothing to see here, move along.

But if we look at just vitamin B12, the reference range (normal range), is all over the place. In the UK is set at 110 – 900ng/l [Itis higher in some regions]. In the US is it between 200 – 900ng/l, and in Japan 500 – 1300ng/l.

In Japan and the US, with a level of 110 you would immediately be given additional B12, in the UK you would be ignored. ‘Your level is fine, go away.’ I have seen many patients who strongly believe that they need additional Vitamin B12 injections, as they feel tired, depressed and suchlike. The NHS simply ignores, unless they have level below 110. Perhaps I should advise them to emigrate to Japan.

An additional problem with vitamin B12 is that the synthetic Vitamin B12 normally used is called hydroxocobalamin. This is then converted into the active form, methylcobalamin, in the body. However, some people cannot metabolise into methylcobalamin and need methylcobalamin injections. Which they cannot get on the NHS. Jolly good. Yes, the more you look into the area, the more complicated, and frustrating, it gets.

Vitamin D is the vitamin most in the news at present. The debate and arguments about vitamin D are becoming quite vitriolic. Some doctors refuse to believe that anyone has a true vitamin D deficiency, others think that the entire population needs to be dosed with added vitamin D during the winter months. I am very much in the latter group.

For example, it has only recently been discovered that that vitamin D has potent anti-cancer effects, and may reduce the risk of CVD. What level of vitamin D is needed to provide these benefits. Almost certainly a much higher level than that required to prevent rickets. Has this level ever been established…no. What about the risk of developing thin bones in old age? No.

Even more recently, a low level of vitamin D has been associated with a much higher level of hospital admission with acute asthma 2. What level is needed to prevent this happening? No idea. As the potential benefits of vitamin D continue to pile up, the minimum blood level remains unchanged and, it seems, unchangeable.

Moving to folate which, despite its name, is another B vitamin. Folate is known to be essential to prevent neural tube defects in the unborn child, and to produce red blood cells and suchlike. Again, the doses to stop these things happening has been established.

However, a recent study in Cambridge has shown that B vitamins, including folate, have significant benefits in reducing homocysteine levels, and if you give them in high doses, way above those currently recommended, they may delay, or even prevent, Alzheimer’s disease and reduce, or prevent, brain shrinkage 3.So, what is the correct dose of folate? Enough to stop neural tube defects, or anaemia, or enough to stop Alzheimer’s?

Can vitamin K prevent atherosclerotic plaques from becoming calcified? Who knows, they have never tested the correct formulation. Can vitamin C reduce the risk of CVD? Who knows? It was tested once in humans, at the wrong dose – at least the wrong dose according to Linus Pauling.

We haven’t the faintest clue about the correct doses, and blood levels of vitamins, required to achieve optimal health. What I do know is that you can take far more than the recommended daily dosage with no problems whatsoever. Vitamins are almost entirely safe. In the US, in 2010, for example, not a single person died from taking a vitamin 4.

On the other hand, you may be interested to read about the total burden of damage and deaths due to correctly prescribed pharmaceuticals. Here, from Harvard University:

‘Few know that systematic reviews of hospital charts found that even properly prescribed drugs (aside from misprescribing, overdosing, or self-prescribing) cause about 1.9 million hospitalizations a year. Another 840,000 hospitalized patients are given drugs that cause serious adverse reactions for a total of 2.74 million serious adverse drug reactions. About 128,000 people die from drugs prescribed to them. This makes prescription drugs a major health risk, ranking 4th with stroke as a leading cause of death. The European Commission estimates that adverse reactions from prescription drugs cause 200,000 deaths; so together, about 328,000 patients in the U.S. and Europe die from prescription drugs each year. The FDA does not acknowledge these facts and instead gathers a small fraction of the cases.5’

Zero deaths, versus 328,000 per year. If I were truly looking for something dangerous to ban, it sure as hell would not be vitamins.

So, which vitamins would I recommend taking? My own view is, take vitamin D in the winter, vitamin C always, along with thiamine and Vitamin K2. About five to ten times recommended daily intake should be fine.

What of other supplements, such as: magnesium, co-enzyme Q10, potassium, L-arginine, L-carnitine, Omega-3 fatty acids, and suchlike. Well I am keen on potassium, very keen. I first noted that higher potassium consumption was associated with significantly reduced mortality in the Scottish heart health study.

This was not some minor difference either. We are talking more than a fifty per cent reduction in overall morality, in men 6. Lesser effect in women. This was far from an isolated finding. In study after study, potassium reduces blood pressure and, in turn, reduces the risk of CVD and overall mortality. Interestingly, the Mediterranean diet, such as it exists, tends to be high in potassium 7.

As for magnesium. Magnesium deficiency is increasingly recognised as a major health issue, and can greatly increase the risk of sudden cardiac death. I now routinely test patients for magnesium levels, as does the rest of the health service, which has belatedly woken up to the importance of this chemical. Magnesium deficiency can also trigger atrial fibrillation (AF) which, in turn, vastly increases the risk of stroke.8 But I feel I am running away with myself a bit. I need to stop, and take stock. The last thing I want people to do, is to worry too much about the levels of this and that in the blood. I do not want you rushing to the doctor, or private lab, to have everything repeatedly checked.

Magnesium level deficiency for example. This is almost unknown if you do not take an acid lowering drug such as omeprazole, or lansoprazole (both proton pump inhibitors (PPIs)). Unless you are taking one of these, of any other ‘zoles,’ long term, you are extremely unlikely to be magnesium deficient. As for potassium, get some lo-salt (a mixture of potassium and sodium chloride), or eat lots broccoli and bananas, and you will be fine. Other vegetables are available.

What of Omega-3 fatty acids, the fabled fish oil. There is some good quality evidence that they can be good for you. They seem to have beneficial effects on the conduction of electrical impulses in the heart. They are mildly anti-coagulant, a bit like aspirin with fewer downsides, such as causing blood loss from the stomach. They also have some benefits on brain function.

So, should you take an Omega-3 supplement? Easier, I think, to eat fish once a week. Sardines on toast is my favourite. But if you feel the need to buy Omega-3 supplements, go ahead. The only downside is cost.

A few years ago, I was contacted by a small company that wanted to create a combination pill to reduce the risk of CVD. They asked me to give them some medical input and support, which I did, but they ran out of money. Before going bust, they did produce a few thousand tubs of Prokardia. A tablet that contained:

Vitamin K2 5µg

Thiamine 7mg

Folic acid 7µg

Potassium 50mg

Magnesium 50mg

L-arginine 600mg

L-carnitine 50mg

L-citrulline 7mg

Co-enzyme Q10 3mg

The L-arginine and L-citrulline on that list are ‘co-factors’ for the production of nitric oxide (NO) in endothelial cells. Co-enzyme Q10 is something I have talked about at some length, and L-carnitine is an amino acid that has been found to have many benefits in CV health. I would have added vitamin D and vitamin C to this list, but you can only get so much stuff in one tablet before it becomes a meal in itself.

I would have been more than happy to promote Prokardia as a supplement. It could do no harm, and everything on that list was potentially beneficial for heart health. Unfortunately, Prokardia does not now exist. However, if you took these supplements, in these doses x4 (you were supposed to take four tablets a day) you would not go far wrong.

Having said all this, I do not want everyone to get too carried away with supplements. I have read articles supporting supplement after supplement, and every single vitamin that exists, in high doses. However, it can all get a bit ridiculous. Eat good, natural foodstuffs, and it should be possible to get everything you need in the diet. After all, that was what we were designed to do. Our ancestors did not go around searching for potassium supplements, or L-citrulline. It was all right there, in the nearest woolly mammoth. All you needed to do was catch it.

Bill in Oz: Sacrificial Virgins (which investigates widespread global concerns over the safety of the controversial HPV vaccines) just won both the Best of Festival and Watchdog Spirit Awards at the Watchdog Film Festival in Brisbane (the three-part series is watchable on youtube).

I wonder if, particularly older people become short of one or other vitamin or supplement, but if they test any particular supplement, it is unlikely to be the one that they themselves are short of – and thus may not make much difference.

Some time ago I gave an account here of how someone I know got a huge benefit from Q10, after having tried a range of other supplements without any noticeable effect. However, my hunch is that for whatever reason that was the compound her body didn’t synthesise well, or didn’t absorb well.

Maybe if everyone who has unexplained “tired all the time” symptoms, should be put on some sort of discovery program to determine what exactly they are short of.

One of the penalties of WordPress I think. A better approach would be to write the replies in another application, then when you are happy with it, post it to the blog. I frequently make errors because my fingers think they have more brain power than I do. Sometimes they are probably right.

Thank you for that. So many people disparage vitamins as aids to better health which is just blinkered to me. It’s good to read a doctor recommending them and telling us which foods are good sources of particular vitamins.
I think people are put off by the mixed messages about vitamins in the media and either do the mega-vitamin thing (which seems to me unnecessary unless you’ve been definitely diagnosed as depleted in a particular vitamin) or choose not to take any as they believe they get all they need from food – and that’s another topic!

Great blog. I have a couple of questions though – Dr Kendrick, I wondered what kind of test you order for checking magnesium levels? I recently had a close relative in a psychiatric unit who I felt was suffering from depression, which I believe was exacerbated by various nutritional deficiencies after a long episode with anorexia nervosa. The consultants were not at all interested in that idea and stated that this person had been admitted with depression this time, not anorexia, and therefore any checks on their nutritional status weren’t done and antidepressants were given instead (with almost fatal consequences). After a lot of hassle, they agreed to check some things like vitamin D level, magnesium etc and said that the ‘vitamin’ D levels were very low and consequently prescribed the usual NHS dose of D3 which was, as I discovered, too low to reverse that kind of deficiency (probably because the NHS seems paranoid about people overdosing on D).

However, the other thing that my personal investigation brought up was that the usual NHS test for magnesium is a blood serum level test. This, it seems, is not at all accurate for checking magnesium levels in the body as the blood levels are maintained by ‘robbing’ magnesium from the body’s stores until their depleted. So someone can have a magnesium deficiency that doesn’t show up until there is virtually no magnesium left in the body at all, by which time I’m sure the usual serious deficiency symptoms will show up. I suppose you might say that if the blood levels are fine, then the body must have enough magnesium to function, but maybe it needs more in the stored tissues to function optimally? As this person’s issue was with their brain function, perhaps the brain needs more magnesium – I know that magnesium is essential for the ‘vitamin/hormone’ D to be synthesised in the body from whatever source (diet or sunlight) and that more research is definitely needed, as it’s now know that the brain also has vitamin D receptors within it.

The other question I have is regarding the source of food in our diet. From studies done over the past few decades it is evident that a lot of micronutrients in foods like fruit and vegetables are not present in the amounts that they were in the past, since the introduction of modern farming techniques. In some instances, some minerals are almost non-existent these days. For that reason my husband and I always try to either buy organic foods or grow our own using organic methods. We do take supplements as well, but again the form of a supplement may or may not be beneficial in that some forms of minerals (eg again magnesium) can be difficult for the body to absorb – the cheaper the supplement, the more likely the minerals are in a cheap but less bioavailable form, and the vitamins may well be synthetic rather that natural. For that reason we get our supplements from a company in the UK that produces ‘food state’ supplements where possible so that hopefully our money isn’t going down the pan!! So would you suggest that organic food should be consumed in preference to any old stuff (obviously if it is affordable)?

Oops – couple of mistakes – I didn’t ‘feel’ the person was suffering from depression, they had been diagnosed as such. Also, sorry about the typo – should be “maintained by ‘robbing’ magnesium from the body’s stores until they’re depleted” …didn’t proofread my comment properly!

Thank you from saving me the task of writing exactly the same points 🙂
Blood serum tests for Mg, under prescribing of Vit D, mineral soil deficiencies. All excellent and you said it so much better than I could have done!

Hi Anglosvizzera, You raise a couple of interesting issues. I have atken lots of Magnesium citrate tablets the past year or so. It is slightly more expensive than readily available Magnesium oxide tablets which only gives us the ‘runs’.
Also as a retired organic farmer, I want to make this comment : the mineral quality of even the organic food you buy, or grow, will ALWAYS reflect the mineral status of the soil it was grown in.

Hello anglosvizzera,
You are correct to suspect modern farming techniques to the depletion of essential micronutrients in many crops. Modern industrial farming depletes the soil of these nutrients and the soil bacteria that provides the nutrients. The planting of genetically modified crops promotes monoculture farming and the application of herbicides and pesticides. The most notorious herbicide in use is Roundup, active ingredient glyphosate, which was patented and used years ago as a metal cleaner, is a metal chelator. Glyphosate bonds to the minerals in the soil, such as iron and manganese, that prevents absorption during food digestion, but then delivers the minerals to the brain to be neurotoxins. Glyphosate has also been patented as an antibiotic, and it destroys the important bacteria in the soil that provides the nutrients. It also destroys the gut bacteria allowing bad bacteria and pathogens to enter the body. Additionally, glyphosate, (N-phosphonomethylglycine), is a synthetic analogue of the essential amino acid glycine, and the human body tries to incorporate glyphosate in protein syntheses, causing misfolding, (origami), of the protein structures resulting in cancers and organ failures. This herbicide is used on non-GMO crops not directly, such as on the ground of grape vines, to keep the weeds in check, and also as a desiccant just before harvest on non-GMO crops such as wheat, oats, rye, barley, and others. This herbicide and its breakdown products have been detected in some organic foods delivered by overspray and runoff water.

You can search for publicaly available papers by Anthony Samsel and Stephenie Seneff on their research of this chronic toxin.

The point made not to become obsessed with rushing out and piling the shopping trolley with jar upon jar of vitamins, minerals and other assorted supplements is a good one – has there been research undertaken into the likes of hunter-gatherers who demonstrate exceedingly low levels of disease (common to the West) to determine their levels of vitamins, minerals, etc ?

As these groups live (or did, until recently) as nature intended, it would perhaps provide a baseline for what the body needs (Vit’ D excepted due to their sun exposure).

That’s an interesting point, although maybe those kinds of groups may not themselves have all the nutrients they need of course, but still survive. In undeveloped areas where children get measles, for example, it’s a very severe disease because they don’t have enough vitamin A (from what I’ve read) in comparison with the developed world and nutritionally sound children there. I don’t know how you can really come to any real conclusion about optimal micronutrient levels.

A study done by Dr Emanual Cheraskin and William Ringsdorf called the ‘SONA Study’ (SONA being an acronym for Suggested Optimal Nutrient Allowances) tried to find optimal levels of essential nutrients, as described in this article:

Wholeheartedly agree with you. Far too little significance is given to vitamins minerals. They play an important role in health and should be taken far more seriously by the NHS than they do at present. I recently had a low vitamin D test, having been assured by my GP he would treat me if I was deficient but my results came back as insufficient so he ignored it. Thankfully my Endo picked it up and told me to take supplements. Crazy times! I look forward to the day when we see Health Coaches working alongside a GP in order to help patients achieve optimal health.

Here in the US, every few years, we are treated to some hysterical gobbledegook press release on the “dangers” of taking vitamins. In truth, about the only way you could harm yourself with the supplements that are available would be to swallow a handful of the pills dry and succumb to choking.

In the latest edition of What The Doctors Don’t Tell You it cites research that suggests Vit D deficiency can also be caused by Electromagnetic Frequencies (EMF) wi-fi, cell phones etc. The EMF’s interfere with Vit D absorbtion, which could explain why Vit D deficiency is so prevalent in Greece where I live…me included. Vit D deficiency is also a cause of auto immune diseases. …there certainly is a lot more to vits than current orthodox medical science knows. Sprouted plants are a fantastic source of vitamins, minerals and hormones. Have a look at http://www.growyourownhrt.com for a start.

Look up liboff’s work. For the framework within which to appreciate there are genuine downsides and upsides to even minute electromagnetic exposures – depending on resonances and not on charge intensity.https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Abraham_Liboff
There’s very interesting findings and a few documents downloadable in which to overview.

He distances himself from some who have been demonised in the past for success outside the Model, in attempt to reach scientific acceptance. But science has never been the determiner of the Model, so much as status, wealth and power. If those three are not associated with the direction of research then it’s a lonely furrow to uncover anything that reveals the existing narrative is false or indeed fraudulent.

I fully agree that we shouldn’t need to take supplements, but given the state of soils in which our food is grown and the deficiencies of nutrition in a number of processed foods, I do believe that they have become extremely necessary!

Frederica. I am responding to your Jan 27 and Feb 3 points regarding your stance on supplementation, and fully agree with you. I have now been taking such since February, after years of accepting the NHS advice that there is no place for them in a healthy person on a healthy diet. Well, I reckon few of use fit into both categories all of the time, so I am now erring on the side of caution, and stocked up with a good supply. After 3 months, I think I do feel better, so I intend to continue my regime now… multivits, vit C, vit D, cod liver oil capsules. However, I am interested in C0Q10. When I started on statins, years ago, I purchased them as I felt there was a need. I am no longer on statins…stopped 5 years ago, thank goodness, but as I have passed the 70 mark now, I feel that there is probably a need to use CoQ10 from the ageing point of view. I feel confused as to the type/ dosage /frequency/pricing discussed on the internet, mostly given by manufacturers. I would appreciate your view, and anyone else who cares to contribute on the subject.
I trust that you are feeling well these days after your hospitalisation.

Jennifer
If you look at what was to be in Prokardia mentionned in episode 45, plus potassium and vitamin E you get what I take. I note two difficult points in life to pass 80 and 90, 80 seems to be the age when long term neglect is catching up with my contemporaries. You only get one crack at life.

Thank you, I am feeling fine, except for a couple of tiresome and uncomfortable side effects from beta blockers.
With regard to CoQ10, here is an extremely informative Mercola article: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/06/26/coq10-ubiquinol-benefits.aspx
We take 100mg ubiquinol daily, and yes, it is very expensive. I buy ours from Vitacost when we are in the States, taking advantage of their offers! btw, not mentioned in the article is the interesting effect that CoQ10 has on gingivitis.

Thank you Frederica. Yes, Ubiquinol is very expensive. I do hope the CoQ10 I have decided to purchase will be utilised well by my body. As I do not take statins, I feel it ought to be satisfactory, ( I am in a good place health wise), so really it is for prophylaxis, so to speak.
Dr Mercola’s paper was most helpful in bringing me to a decision.
I just love the help people on this blog , such as yourself, are prepared to share with one another.

Not very often I disagree with you Malcolm or perhaps I just need a little more clarification. Magnesium has been farmed out of our soil (mainly due to mono crops and pesticides etc). The only NHS test is serum Magnesium which will give massively misleading results, less than 1% of the body’s Magnesium is stored in serum, to really test it you need to do a soft tissue or RBC Mg which the NHS just don’t do. Worse yet, the body will steal Mg from tissues which are severely depleted just to keep serum levels high (to prevent your heart from stopping). GP does a blood test – all comes back rosy when it really isn’t Worse yet – go and buy the RDA Magnesium supplements from your local boots and it will contain Magnesium Oxide which unfortunately the body will only absorb 4% at best. Modern thinking suggests that most of us are Magnesium Deficient.. As Ivor would say, before we can fix it – we first need to measure it.

Getting all vitamins from modern food and vegetables is getting more difficult
as intensive farming and processed foods do not contain the goodness that they used to contain. Also you don’t mention minerals which are essential for healthy living
and these are no longer so available in our vegetables. So I believe in taking multi
Vitamin and mineral supplements- as an insurance!

Brilliant Dr K! As ever, right to the point. If, and only if, you eat a balanced diet of 80% fruit and vegetables, 20% meat-based protein, you should get everything you need, assuming everything else is equal eg, exercise, don’t smoke, drink little, haven’t been exiled from your native land or been incessantly bombed by the imperialists. The problem of course, is that most of us in the alleged developed world, don’t live like that (and it’s us who do the bombing and the exiling).

I think I have a pretty balanced diet but just in case I do take B12, D3/K2, every other day, I’d like to take natural Vitamin C but it’s really expensive, so I pass on this and hopefully my daily intake of broccoli, carrots, peppers, onions, garlic, ginger etc and a low carbohydrate diet makes up for it. Plus I take magnesium citrate because it seems to reduce my leg cramps in the morning.

I also eat fish at least once a week, splurge on wild smoked salmon and get through about a dozen eggs a week (organic).

And I’m not sure if it’s connected but I rarely get colds, the last time I caught flu was in New York in 1975 (a particularly nasty variant that caught my immune system unawares), I don’t get flu shots or shots for shingles. My one foolish habit, smoking, no doubt was the major contributing factor to my heart disease (I packed it in about ten years ago, but not soon enough apparently). and I’m almost 73.

Linus Pauling wrote that ascorbic acid powder was extremely cheap; an although prices have risen, here in England I can buy 575 grams or so for about £15 from Holland & Barrett. (They usually have a “two for one” deal, which halves that). I can take 5-6 grams dissolved in water once or twice daily, and only have to buy new stocks every few months.

Tom,
Apparently not the same, something to do with whether the molecule is left or right-handed? Given that we do know something about how molecules ‘fit’ together and the receptors in the body, it kinda makes sense.

Molecules that have the same molecular formula and order of atoms but differ in 3-dimensional orientations of their atoms are called stereo-isomers. The orientation can be a big deal in biochemistry…hence attention to L and D forms of molecules.

barovsky,
quote
i) If, and only if, you eat a balanced diet of 80% fruit and vegetables, 20% meat-based protein,
ii) I also eat fish at least once a week, … get through about a dozen eggs a week (organic).
iii) a low carbohydrate diet …

80% Carbs? where did you get that figure from? Not me! I have a (roughly) 80% vegetable plus fruit diet which includes yoghurt, berries, bananas, fish, chicken and the occasional red meat, like lamb. So for example, broccoli, carrots, peppers etc, contain virtually no calories but I do eat bread (sourdough) and cook with coconut oil. I also eat mushrooms tomatoes, bacon. I think I have a diverse and healthy diet.

It is probably useful to consider the source of carbohydrates in the diet. Those from fruit and vegetables are always (to the best of my amateur knowledge!) shown to be beneficial in health outcomes. Those from added sugars and refined flours and other processed foods are often problematic.

Several commenters have mentioned the deficiency (sometimes very gross) of nutrients in modern foods. My first awareness of this syndrome came in about 1974 when I read one of Adelle Davis’ books. She had a chapter called “Which Orange – Grown Where?” where she pointed out that perfectly normal looking and tasting oranges had been found to contain exactly zero Vitamin C. Another nasty insidious problem was the absence of selenium and iodine in grains and vegetables, due to their exhaustion from the soil. A person could gradually develop serious deficiencies due to the complete absence of the tiny amounts of such trace elements that would be present in “normal” healthy foods.

This syndrome, apparently, has been brought on by our insanely twisted economic system. Instead of aiming to feed people healthy food – and earn a decent living in the process – farmers struggle to maximize profits. A whole industry has sprung up, manufacturing “food-like products” that are accepted as food but may be fatally deficient in various ways. Conventional economics tells us that there is a “market price” for a loaf of bread, an orange, or a head of broccoli. But economics doesn’t tell us how to know whether those foods are complete, or denatured – you can’t tell by looking, weighing or anything except chemical analysis. Even “healthy” beef or pork may be quite unhealthy if the animal has been fed on vile soya/fishmeal topped up with lethal vegetable oils. (Although very white fat is a bad sign).

So the possibility arises that the whole of Western medical science has gone off at a tangent for almost a century. The assumption is almost always made that what the average person eats is a normal, healthy diet – bread, pasta, other grains, sugar and all. But what if such a diet is actually harmful? Then many of the recommendations we see could be no more than palliatives to minimize the harm caused by an unhealthy diet; while no attempt has ever been made to determine what constitutes a healthy diet. And tens of billions of pounds or dollars spent annually on treating people made sick by their food and drink may be wasted.

Dedicated researchers like T.L. Cleave, Dr Weston Price and Vilhjalmur Stefansson reported that the “primitive” peoples they studied had virtually no incidence of “the diseases of civilization” – as well as usually little or no tooth decay or gum disease despite never cleaning their teeth. Stefansson (confirmed by others) explained the tragic story of how Scott’s second Antarctic expedition died (probably of scurvy, or due to scurvy) despite following all the current medical recommendations for avoiding scurvy; yet other expeditions that were far less careful in that regard survived without any problems, because they were driven by necessity to kill and eat local wildlife. Apparently, on a diet of seal meat and fish, for example, scurvy never develops although one takes absolutely no Vitamin C! So is the very need for Vitamin C – in supplements or in food – only caused by eating carbohydrates (or perhaps refined carbohydrates)?

Stefansson repeatedly urges that pemmican – a mixture of dried, finely flaked buffalo meat and fat, made by the Native Americans – is the only known food that can be eaten exclusively for months or even years, without any nutritional deficiencies and even with pleasure.

When Gandhi visited London long ago, an impertinent reporter asked him what he thought of Western civilization. Gandhi replied, “I think it would be a very good idea”.

Perhaps we should be saying the same thing about Western nutritional science.

You make very good points. I have long pondered these issues. I try to buy meat and vegetables and milk from a local farmer who is obsessed by producing food naturally and can bore you for hours on the matter. I increasingly feel that he is farming in the correct way, and that much of the food we buy in supermarkets is not farmed ‘naturally’ and is probably highly deficient in all sorts of things. His food is very expensive which, luckily, I can afford. However, I fear that poorer people in society are forced to buy the cheapest, most cheaply produced, food. This is a bad thing. Whether or not supplements, and individually purchased vitamins, can achieve the same benefits as such things found naturally in food I do not know – for sure. I hope so.

I wish I could find such a farmer locally, but it may be laziness in not making enough effort to find one. Tom Walsh does make very good points, and supported by Stephanie Seneff’s work, is probably correct in saying modern produce is largely short of nutrients,, ably assisted by GMO. Though such crops are not routinely grown in the UK, yet, many animals are fed on imported feeds which do contain GMOs. I have written to my MP more than once about the problems with GMOs, but being a, sometimes in, sometimes out, cabinet minister, he trots out the “we must look at all possible ways to feed a growing population, and GMOs would provide great benefits…..blah blah blah”. This clearly indicates a complete lack of understanding of how glyphosate starves the plants of nutrient minerals, even if they survive growing in treated fields.

As for the cheaper foods, this is what I see is the problem for people who are unfortunate enough to need hospital treatment, where the food should b the best available to assist their treatment and recovery, yet it is probably the cheapest which could pass for food, but neglecting the nutrient value.

As to modern “farming”, I managed to finish reading “Farmageddon” but it made me very queasy indeed. I was born in Rosario de Santa Fe, Argentina and when I read about what has been done to it… Apparently there is now an illustrated edition which I shall NOT be reading.

We can’t afford all the food we would like to eat, but I think we do fairly well. We buy some food from a big organic supplier who delivers (Abel & Cole). True, it’s not nearly as good as knowing the farmer and how he farms personally, but at least we can be sure it’s all organic. A&C are also very customer-friendly and respond instantly to feedback or questions. For instance, I asked them about dairy & meat from grass-fed animals, and they put me in touch with the local rep of the Weston Price Foundation who made some very helpful recommendations.

Not to get into politics, but the Russian government has made a strong commitment to natural food, and has forbidden anything to do with GM – no growing, no selling, no importing. So maybe soon we should all be looking to buy Russian!

Malcolm, I am a 70 year old retired organic farmer. Over the course of my farming life I have watched my fellow organic certified growers….And all of us have aged and all of us have gradually been affected by chronic diseases such as CVD..( not many T2D’s though !)..And that is part of the aging genetic program….

I suggest that as we age our capacity to absorb & utilise the various vitamins and minerals needed, also falls away. Why ? It’s again part of the ‘natural, programmed aging” built into our genes.

So eating well is good but not sufficient.

As for me, I’m not interested in just accepting this programmed fate.

So I take lots of vitamins and minerals as well as eating a good diet and staying away from high sugary crap foods & industrial seed oils.

In addition to the ones you mention I include the following : Kyolic garlic capsules, Berberine, Alpha Lipoic acid, Lithium oratate ( 5mg) Melatonin, and Chondroitin sulfate…

Speaking of poor people, since I got the cancer diagnosis in October, I immediately quit working as I hated my job and knew that if I am to have a chance, I had to de-stress. Thus I applied for a food stamp card and used it for the first time yesterday. Yesterday was my 60th birthday and I’ve worked long and hard, so I don’t feel too guilty. Anyway, I was careful to put only food in my cart, as you cannot charge things like soap. At the end, I had to pay 4 and 1/2 dollars, so I asked them, What did I put in my cart that was not food? It turns out that some organic produce is not covered! You buy organic, you’re on your own! But you can buy soda or any other junk food.

There’s been a lot of talk about lost nutrients in modern crops and food, but what about water? It’s easy to overlook. I assume we used to drink from rivers and lakes and this must have had a high mineral content that is lost in tap water.

Not necessarily. You can get a very detailed breakdown of everything that’s in your tap water (quantitative) from your water board – I got mine from the Web in a few minutes. Plenty of minerals.

More worrying is what is added – such as fluoride. We don’t have it added here in Basingstoke, but I believe it is added in some parts of the UK. We tried a filter jug for chloride and fluoride, but gave up when the company went bust and we began to suspect it might have been a scam.

We have fluoride added to the water, we also have a continuing fight with the local authority as the portfolio holder for “health” is reasurred that the amounts of fluoride added are not a health hazard. How would he know? He has no idea how much any one person drinks, how many showers they have, or baths, or what weight they are, or if they have thyriod problems. Authorities where fluoride is added seem to be full of people who think fluoride in the water has some beneficial effect on dental decay. There two possibilities for these people, either they are ignorant, or they are evil. Let’s hope they are just ignorant. We have pointed out Scotland has dental health improving faster than in England, and Scotland does not add fluoride to the water. (I just hope they don’t have naturally high levels, as that would be embarrasing).

I remember when I read about the Blue Zones (5 places around the world where people live extra-long, extra-healthy lives), I learned that in one (Nicoya, Costa Rica), the water was very high in calcium and magnesium. So inhabitants were getting plenty of that trio of essentials that depend one each other (calcium, magnesium, and D – I assume there was plenty of sunshine and most people in the community spent a lot of time outdoors).

@Tom Welsh, did you ask the water board to let you know how much in the way of pharmaceutical residue there is in the water? As far as I understand things, it is assumed that the tiny amount of such drugs/hormones etc in water captured for our household use is too small to be a problem, but as we know hormones can have a huge effect in very small doses and the fact is that every day the toxic load of excreted pharmaceuticals going down the pan must be adding to the amount that ends up in groundwater, which is too expensive to be removed by water treatment companies.

However, what isn’t generally taken into account are the chemicals and pharmaceuticals used for animals which are excreted by those animals into the ground and which make their way into the groundwater that is extracted for our consumption. I don’t know whether such things are measured and whether water companies would tell us about the quantities in our water, but it’s something we should no doubt think about.

Professor Alistair Boxall of York University did a report on this in 2014, but as I don’t have £150 to buy the paper, I’ll just post a link to this abstract:

Thank you for this, it is so refreshing to hear such open minded, practical attitudes from someone in the medical profession. I just wish you were an endocrinologist – I have had years of dealing with the attitude that levothyroxine will always work for under active thyroid issues and natural dessicared thyroid is the Devil’s work! Despite so many of us experiencing the opposite. I have been interested to see how bringing my levels of vitamins, minerals and Vit D2 to an optimum level and using an adaptogen – ashwaganda – has brought me to balanced thyroid and cortisol levels. I am so much more aware of the nexessity for ‘balance ‘ to ensure our body works optimally. I also find your blogs give me the courage to continue to refuse statins as a prolonged trial of various types and doses resulted in me feeling I had aged 20years, physically and mentally. So, thanks again, please continue the good work…!!

Thanks for mentioning thyroid. I wanted to share my strange tale with you. I was producing inactive T3. Until I took liothyronine I had no luck with thyroid meds. I haven’t tried the dessicated thyroid. Maybe now I will. I also realized I was painfully deficient in iodine. Iodine is hardly ever mentioned in vitamin or supplement lists. I now add bits of wakame to all soups and sprinkle dulse on nearly everything I eat at home. I took some supplements but I ended up with metallic flavors, so since I love sushi anyway, I just go out for it more often, and ensure that what i get is wrapped in nori. I also found benefit from ashwagandha. It doesn’t suit the flavors of soup though. That’s one I take as a pill.

Interesting to hear your story. I am sure it is important that we all work hard to identify whatever vitamins/supplements improve our condition. Difficult when we are expected to accept the ‘one size fits all’ approach!

“f a company did a major clinical trial on vitamin K, and found that it saved lives, there would be nothing to stop anyone else selling vitamin K, whilst claiming the newly discovered health benefits for themselves. The company that took the financial risk, and funded the trials, would be unable to recoup any research costs.”

This is precisely why we need generous public funding of basic science. Biology grad students could undertake such studies in preparation for lab work or a medical career, under the leadership of fellowship students who are funded to do it. Everyone needs to contribute to this. This is a common good. Focusing only on profits kills people. Quixotic? Yes. But nonetheless, correct.

In the private funding situation, it’s better to have a discount or payback for research costs to profit organizations, then it is to fail to have any basic science. There is also reputation. Monsanto has been buffeted about glyphosate in GMO corn and other crops. I’m one of their biggest detractors on that subject. But if they undertook a Pauling Institute quality replication of previous studies (with large enough sample sizes,… I mean after all they are multinational, their sample could be multinational too…, I would still be grateful. Assuming they didn’t botch it on purpose, of course. 😉 All sorts of suspicions would arise, but if they played it straight, a lot of people would be grateful for it and their reputation wouldn’t be as one dimensional.

I think the reason people have no sympathy for high research costs is because we don’t see any give-back to science. Just a taking of funds to make more profits for themselves. They act like they are in a horse race, whose hurry leaves our loved ones out in the cold. This is where the “they want us to be sick enough to use their meds, but not quite dead” attitude comes from.

“Eat good, natural foodstuffs, and it should be possible to get everything you need in the diet. After all, that was what we were designed to do. Our ancestors did not go around searching for potassium supplements, or L-citrulline. It was all right there, in the nearest woolly mammoth. All you needed to do was catch it.”

I see your point, about not getting too carried away, but I think you should re-examine the assumptions in the above sentences. First, my genetics is only mildly connected anymore to my Neanderthal ancestors (and I know I have more than most people on that front). But I have enough changes in me to affect my health significantly, for instance, I had a magnesium deficiency by age 20 without ever taking a PPI or such drugs. I developed several autoimmune diseases, exactly as predicted by my Neanderthal ancestry. That 4% of my genetics is really loud as far as transcription rate.

Second, I’m not eating Wooly mammoth. I’m eating factory farmed meat from deficient unhappy animals full of chemicals and monolithic diets. Unless I’m willing to buy elk from a farm in Colorado (I’m in the USA), or go hunting, I’m not getting any wild meat. I can compromise and get some grass fed beef or pastured meat, but most people think that’s the end in itself, they don’t realize that’s a compromise.

Third, I’m trying to get well again, not to maintain an already healthy body. I wish I were just maintaining. I wish I still thought things like, “ah well, it’s a small risk if I eat this pizza and beer, I can handle it.” Because now, I can’t handle it. If ate that now, I’d be out of commission for two weeks while the gluten and unhealthy fat and alcohol worked its way out of me. I can no longer treat workouts as an optional activity. If I don’t exercise some, I’ll suffer awfully. My body has already adjusted to low vitamin supplies, and responded by whatever means it deems necessary to keep me alive. It’s painful, exhausting, and mentally depressing to be alive but sick.

I have some bad reactions to some vitamins. B vitamins often give me a headache. Since I’ve been taking thyroid meds, I can tolerate B vitamins better. But only a bit better. Maybe it’s a peculiarity of my genetics, but I have never been able to take much folate. It always gives me full body burning pain. I know that my genetics codes for fast twich muscles in preference to slow. That makes me a sprinter, not a jogger. We need some basic science to answer questions like “which groups of people need what amount of folate?” And similar questions. Most exercise science focuses on joggers.

If you are having B vitamin problems, have the MTHFR gene study done, you may need methylfolate and methy b-12. My daughter has that situation, picked up on gene test and now she is much better. Or have methylmalonate serum test. Good luck on your road to recovery!

Great article! Just to clarify magnesium is a nutrient we are very depleted in (in Uk), not just due to soil depletion, food transportation, preservation but also stress depletes mag stores. As for the hairy mammoth in the past the whole beast would have been eaten eyeballs and all. Now it’s just neatly plastic wrapped thighs or breast and nutritionally there is no comparison whatsoever!

uni-vite Nutrishield says it is ‘a unique approach to positive health maintenance based on the very latest scientific research. Each freshness-sealed handy pack [6 lozenges] contains a comprehensive day’s supply of the highest quality nutrients. The formula is designed to deliver the optimum level of each nutrient in the most bio-available form’. I recommend anyone to look up the website.

Oh dear, that seems a bit of a careless claim. How can their recommendation deliver the optimum level of vitamins without examining the patient? The one size fits all approach has rarely proved to be correct.

It is popular to blame soil depletion for the reduced nutrient value of our food, for instance in this Scientific American article:

“fruits and vegetables grown decades ago were much richer in vitamins and minerals than the varieties most of us get today. The main culprit in this disturbing nutritional trend is soil depletion: Modern intensive agricultural methods have stripped increasing amounts of nutrients from the soil in which the food we eat grows.” — https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/

However, Donald Davis, the scientist who has done the most work on the subject, blames bloated crops bred for yield rather than nutrition:

“Recent studies of historical nutrient content data for fruits and vegetables spanning 50 to 70 years show apparent median declines of 5% to 40% or more in minerals, vitamins, and protein in groups of foods, especially in vegetables…. In fruits, vegetables, and grains, usually 80% to 90% of the dry weight yield is carbohydrate. Thus, when breeders select for high yield, they are, in effect, selecting mostly for high carbohydrate with no assurance that dozens of other nutrients and thousands of phytochemicals will all increase in proportion to yield. Thus, genetic dilution effects seem unsurprising.” — http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/44/1/15.full

If minerals are missing from the soil, I don’t see how organic farming can put them back. You need actual mineral supplementation.

On the other hand, if high-yield crops, which are also attractive to the consumer because they are bigger and juicier and sweeter, are grown organically, they will still dilute the nutrient content because, effectively, they are obese.

I’ve done quite a bit of reading on the matter and I believe that if you can afford organic, buy organic, but if you can’t, don’t worry too much. If veggies are 20% depleted in nutrients, just eat 20% more veggies, don’t buy 50% more expensive veggies.

One day I’d like to buy a refractometer and take Brix readings of what I’m eating. That seems to be a good quick way of checking on nutrient quality, short of doing full lab tests. But until then, I buy what I can afford as fresh as I can get.

“If minerals are missing from the soil, I don’t see how organic farming can put them back. You need actual mineral supplementation.”

As far as organic produce is concerned, I think in the UK there is a slightly different definition from the US. I don’t know where you live, Martin, but this paragraph below is taken from the UK DEFRA site and maintains that fertilisers are used, in the form of animal and plant manure, which improves the nutritional content and structure of the soil, much as it used to back in the ‘good old days’ of traditional farming”

“The Department for Agriculture and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) states that:

‘Organic food is the product of a farming system which avoids the use of man-made fertilisers, pesticides; growth regulators and livestock feed additives. Irradiation and the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or products produced from or by GMOs are generally prohibited by organic legislation.

Organic agriculture is a systems approach to production that is working towards environmentally, socially and economically sustainable production. Instead, the agricultural systems rely on crop rotation, animal and plant manures, some hand weeding and biological pest control’.”

Martin Back: Excellent point. Varieties grown today have indeed been selected for yield rather than flavor or nutrients. Your comment really makes me think. Given sufficient precipitation, soils continue to produce flourishing forests and grasslands year after year. Where could the minerals possibly go? Unless everything produced from that soil is removed? Seems even in this case it would take a very long time to reduce mineral stocks. Something to ponder. Also, it is likely that marginal soils are now used for cropping that weren’t used before. I have a portable refractometer (they don’t cost much), and the results are very interesting!

The bloated crops – and the rush to get more crops out of the soil quicker – deplete what minerals were there. No doubt minerals are gradually replaced by “natural decay”, but very slowly indeed.

Your point about organic farming is reasonable, but some soils have always been farmed organically and patiently and those should remain healthy. As well as giving us a baseline for what we should consider normal.

Martin, thanks for your informed and thoughtful comment.. This is an issue which is also important to me.

I accept the truth about “when breeders select for high yield, they are, in effect, selecting mostly for high carbohydrate with no assurance that dozens of other nutrients and thousands of phytochemicals will all increase in proportion to yield.” So true !

However across the world, the soils of intensively farmed areas are indeed depleted of many minerals. After all each of the plants also needs these minerals to grow and thrive. And when the crop is removed and sold away, the minerals in the crop are removed around the world to consumers mostly living in big cities.

And where do these minerals all wind up ? In the sewerage system of all the cities we live in. Most of the sewerage systems dump their effluent in adjoining seas or rivers which then flow out to sea…So effectively these needed minerals are dumped in the seas & oceans.

Interestingly here in Oz, a couple of cities ( Adelaide & Melbourne ) treat the effluent and then reuse it via dedicated pipes, for gardens and for growing commercial vegetable & flower crops.

Now this to me is good common sense. But it sets a major challenge to the organics industry which is very squeamish about using treated effluent on crops.

A second soil is is sol compaction. Large farms need big machinery. And big machines are heavy. Heavy machines used especially on moist ground, compact the soils. And compacted soils prevent plants roots from growing deep and accessing minerals and nutrients deeper in the soil profile.

By the way, at least here in Oz, organically certified farmers have to to do mineral soil tests and Ph. tests. every few years and show that they are implementing a soil fertility program which is based on the soil tests.

Thus in my own case, over 12 years, I improved the mineral fertility of my farm’s soils by adding bought in volcanic rock dust, phosphate rock dust, lime & by composting on farm.

I think minerals are lost to run off and not replenished by the farming practice excepting genuine organic husbandry.

But Soil is a living community/ecosystem as are we in fact if not in fantasy.

Look into the toxic dump of ‘bio-solids’ sold as ‘organic fertiliser’. But it is sad news.
I agree that we need to make our waste useful – but effluents contain industrial and pharmaceutical waste. Corporate profit in exchange for toxic bio-degradation. Make up a new disease and some new pharma/biologic GM solutions.

Yes many of our Big Arable farmers use copious quantities of animal dung from their livestock brethren, and also digested human ordure, although there are restrictions as to which crops can be grown following its incorporation. Not peas or salad crops for example.

The council used to collect garden and kitchen waste and compost it (well actually a subcontractor did the work) and sell that back to farmers. They also use copious quantities of Limex to maintain mineral status. Then they spoil the whole deal by mostly growing carbs and margarine.

When building a path for my extensive flower garden I bedded the stones in a mix of stone dust and 1/2 inch screened crushed stone. (Igneous stone in my area.) It packs solid if you get the proportions right, but doesn’t crack in a three foot deep freeze as concrete would. (It’s cold here!)

I’m having trouble getting a handle what difference taking these vitamins will make? Taking statins at best we’d would expect to live 4 more days. Will taking these vitamins improve longevity? Improve quality of life? I don’t want to be a downer, but what would be the impact? I know there are no studies and it’s impossible to tell for sure, it’s just hard to calculate the cost benefit ratio here.

A video by Matthias Rath on the benefits of vitamin C for vascular health is worth looking at. It is available on youtube. This shows one instance of the problems with cronic shortage of vitamin C, but you would still appear healthy, until the frequent repairs to blood vessels failed and caused MI.

@Todd Hoff Regarding the benefits of vitamins and minerals, for example there has been a lot of research in recent years about the benefits of a decent level of ‘vitamin’ D, which appears to protect against a number of chronic conditions that are currently plaguing the developed world, such as type 2 diabetes, dementia, depression, MS, osteoporosis, many forms of cancer and various other illnesses. There have been studies done for plenty of micronutrients, which aren’t widely published in the mainstream media – but they are there if you want to look for them.

As I understand it, Todd (and I am not qualified except through my reading), vitamins are not drugs but foods. They are taken to restore our food intake to what it should be. Whereas drugs are artificial chemicals taken to “fix” ill health after it has set in.

I recently came across a quotation attributed to Eli Lilly himself – founder of the huge drug firm. He said that, if a substance doesn’t have serious side effects, it isn’t a drug.

Bill in Oz, Todd
Exactly what I told my grandson, it works for me, I am in good health, so why give up.
Most negative stuff about vitamins and grandmotherly remedies comes from big Pharma, who hate competition, or doctors, who hate challenges to their authority.

​ “We are talking more than a fifty per cent reduction in overall morality, in men 6 ”

Is it really true that potassium is not good for the morals??? Best regards, Knut Flatland, Oslo,

‌

2018-01-27 11:46 GMT+01:00 Dr. Malcolm Kendrick :

> Dr. Malcolm Kendrick posted: “27th January 2018 Vitamins and supplements > and suchlike I did say I was going to talk about strain and mental health > next, but so many people have commented on vitamins and supplements, that I > thought I should cover this area. I must say that I do l” >

Potassium.
The maximum dose of any potassium tablet may not exceed 99 mg – in the US.
The FDA seems to be much more frightened of overdose consequences that you, doc. or the Prokardia people who would have had their daily dose at 200 mg.

I think the 99mg dose limit in the US has nothing to do with preventing people overdosing, but it is a result of pressure from big pharma to ensure people did not get enough to do them any good, so they would think they still needed the big pharma products.

JDPatten: Very good question. I am curious, too. The last time I visited the sawbones I told her that in my opinion everyone should take a potassium supplement. Her response was, “They can’t get rid of it.” ACE inhibitors retain potassium, but what about the rest of us? In my understanding, the kidneys do a remarkable job of keeping minerals in the proper balance all day long, and for decades, releasing what we don’t need in the urine. In my rough calculations it is not possible to get the recommended amount of potassium from food without eating nothing but chocolate and beet greens.

Enjoyed your comments about the nutrient deficiency in modern foods. The example of the orange reminded me of a blog (or a comment on a blog) contemplating the banana. I can’t find the source but it went something like this:

At the point of consumption you have (a) an inedible skin and (b) what amounts to a pile of sugar and, if you are lucky, maybe some vitamins and minerals.

Prior to consumption, the so called fresh fruit had probably been in your fruit bowl for a few days.

Prior to purchase, the banana had probably been on the supermarket shelf or floor for some time.

Prior to arriving at the supermarket, it had probably been sealed in one of those containers (with the preservative gas).

Prior to that – who knows? How and where was it grown? What was the soil quality? Were any chemicals used?

The lower level of insulin experienced by those eating far fewer carbohydrates clearly has significant benefits, but it also means a greater loss of fluid and does the extra water loss take important nutrients with it? We know that people who significantly reduce their carbohydrate intake are advised to eat or drink extra salt, presumably to make up that lost in passing more water.

As always, I am not qualified… but based on my reading, I think that low-carb usually involves cutting down (or out) added sugar, sweet foods, and especially wheat and other grains. Also perhaps most fruit (“Nature’s candy”). A reasonable intake of leafy vegetables and maybe some root vegetables seems to be recommended by almost all authorities.

When you start eating low-carb you may lose some water – with a concomitant loss of a few pounds, which shouldn’t be allowed to set expectations too high! But after that I don’t think water loss can possibly be excessive, as the body calibrates such things very precisely indeed. As for loss of minerals, vitamins, etc., the kidneys do a very fine job of keeping what is needed and excreting the rest.

Lastly, I don’t think low-carb can lead to malnutrition, as it is known for certain that people can live healthily for many years on nothing but meat, optionally with fish, dairy and eggs. The only proviso is you need to eat enough fat meat, or cheese, butter, etc. to avoid protein poisoning. Plenty of advice is available on these matters from doctors and other qualified people.

I would never depend on a regular “doctor” (unless he specialized in nutrition) for advice about foods, vitamins, or herbs (or anything else about health for that matter!) because they are in the business of selling pills for profit.

I simply don’t understand all the low-carb stuff. How on earth do people go through life without consuming bread and noodles, etc.? I certainly couldn’t do that, and neither would my family. As for meat, it provides protein as well as general nourishment, and cheese, butter and raw milk provide all kinds of good things the body needs, providing the animals from which the milk is procured is fed almost entire on grass, haygrass and properly raised “grains” when grass is unavailable. Hard to find these days. Just about as hard to find as a decent egg. Check out the “egg scorecard” at Cornucopia.com to see if what you’re eating is really and truly a good egg. Very few people understand the differences between cage-free, pastured, pasture-fed, etc. There’s a good explanation at that site about that – and other foods, as well.

Someone mentioned the food served in hospitals and thought mcdonald’s might be a better choice. In America, hospitals now have fast food outlets right in the cafeteria areas. I nearly fainted several years ago when we went there to visit my Mom and saw the fast food lineup. It’s appalling that hospitals push this idea when “health and wellness” is supposed to be their foremost concern. What a joke. Their concern, once again, is profit not health.

And, just for giggles, ask Dr. K exactly what’s in those hospital IV’s that are supposed to pass for “nutrition” when people are trying to recover. OMG. A friend who is a nurse posted the list of stuff that’s in those things a while back at a forum I belong to and it’s astounding that anyone EVER recovers enough to actually go home.

“Our ancestors did not go round searching for … supplements”. No, they didn’t need them because they weren’t eating food produced on depleted soils! I can remember going to a lecture given by John Seymour as long ago as the 1980s in which he stressed the disastrous state of conventionally farmed soils.

And we’re much worse off now, as far as diminished soils and the poisonous sprays being used, which companies like monsanto just keep insisting are not harmful to humans and animals. Yet we can see the mutant qualities of fish and other animals, and we’re supposed to believe their chemical concoctions don’t harm humans? What bunk.

My understanding is that it’s K2 which prevents calcium from lodging in all sorts of unwanted places, such as arteries, soft tissue and joints. There’s an illuminating book on the topic: Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox, written by Dr. Kate Rheaume-Bleue.

I’ve also read anecdotal evidence that taking papaya supplements can dissolve calcium deposits. Further research on this?

The good news is that K2 is abundant in grass fed eggs and butter, also Brie and Gouda cheeses.

New research published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine exposes the extent of redactions in protocols for industry-sponsored randomised drug trials. Trial protocols are needed for a proper assessment of the veracity of drug trial reports. The researchers, from the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen, found widespread redactions in the protocols for commercially sponsored trials they received from research ethics committees in Denmark. The study is believed to be the first systematic assessment of which information in trial protocols pharmaceutical companies do not wish to disclose to independent researchers. Professor Peter Gøtzsche, director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, said: “We wished to compare the information in the protocols with the information provided to the patients in order to evaluate whether the trials were ethical and necessary and whether essential information about the benefits and the harms of the drugs had been hidden from the patients.”

It is difficult to get access to drug trial protocols so Professor Gøtzsche and his colleagues used the Danish Freedom of Information Act to request access to 78 trial protocols approved by a research ethics committee from October 2012 to March 2013. Eight protocols were excluded because they did not meet the research inclusion criteria. Only 17 of 34 protocols for commercially sponsored trials were unredacted, compared to 34 of 36 non-commercially sponsored trials.

The redactions were most widespread in those sections of the protocol where there is empirical evidence of substantial problems with the trustworthiness of published drug trials. These include the definition of patient outcomes, the detection and analysis of adverse events and the sponsor’s access to incoming data while the study is running.

Professor Gøtzsche said: “The amount of redactions in the protocols we received was so vast that it made them rather useless for assessing the ethical justification for the studies and to identify discrepancies with subsequent publications.

“We could not identify any legitimate rationale for the redactions. The current mistrust in industry-sponsored drug trials can only change if the industry offers unconditional access to its trial protocols and other relevant documents and data.”

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Re Redactions,
I discovered that NICE, the government body hee n the UK that allegedly tests the drugs we’re given actually DOESN’T test them at all! It relies on the information supplied by the manufacturer. What a ripoff! The whole thing is composed of smoke and mirrors!

Mmm,I don’t know what to make of it. The German reseacher Michael Ristow says we need free radicals (in moderation): they could promote lifespan. Antioxidants kill the hormetic effect of free radicals. Also he claims antioxidants (read supplements) increase all mortality.

Ristow refers to his own pioneering work where he showed that giving young men Vitamin C and E supplements meant that they did not show the positive effects of excercising for 2.5 h / day for four weeks. Would be interesting to look up the paper to see how much they were getting and what kind of Vitamin E.

He seems wary of E and A, whereas he seems relaxed about C, any excess of which he says gets flushed out.

There are obviously beneficial effects of C e.g. on the endothelium, so what is the optimal concentration?

To me this blog about supplements is the best one so far probably since I myself am a keen fan of vitamins and especially of natural vitamin E in high doses which seems to keep my unstable angina at bay.

Here is an interesting take on this.

My local supplier in Sweden suddenly told us customers that the local authorities had forbidden him to sell vitamins at high doses. This was due to some European decision/recommendation, made 10 years old, not to allow the sales of vitamins at high doses. (We see Big Pharma in the background here.) Our main Swedish authority had, based on this EU recommendation, all of a sudden advised all local communities in Sweden to enforce this restriction on all business they supervised. Well my supplier brought the local authorities to court and after a prolonged fight that almost costed him his business he finally won his case since it was an illegal action from the authorities. There were actually several court cases in Sweden which were all lost by the authorities.

A new try to get this comment posted. To me this blog about supplements is the best one so far probably since I myself am a keen fan of vitamins and especially of natural vitamin E in high doses which seems to keep my unstable angina at bay.

Here is an interesting take on this.

My local supplier in Sweden suddenly told us customers that the local authorities had forbidden him to sell vitamins at high doses. This was due to some European decision/recommendation, made 10 years old, not to allow the sales of vitamins at high doses. (We see Big Pharma in the background here.) Our main Swedish authority had, based on this EU recommendation, all of a sudden advised all local communities in Sweden to enforce this restriction on all business they supervised. Well my supplier brought the local authorities to court and after a prolonged fight that almost costed him his business he finally won his case since it was an illegal action from the authorities. There were actually several court cases in Sweden which were all lost by the authorities.

Without detracting from this blog in any way, I don’t think you can beat Malcolm’s early blogs that helped people to give up on statins, and move to a diet richer in saturated fats.

What you wrote is interesting, because clearly there are supplements that would be dangerous in excess – e.g. most trace elements such as selenium. So what exactly was the argument here – was it that no toxicity had been detected at high doses, but they decided on the ban without justification?

There are certainly claims that some vitamins are poisonous in excess, for example:

But with Malcolm I don’t know of anyone who has died from overdoses of vitamins but I guess it would theoretically be possible.

You can overdose on almost everything, even saturated fats according to the trials performed on Dr. Andersson at the famous Bellevue experiments carried out a hundred years ago. The limit as far as I remember was not to consume more than 80% of the diet as saturated fats (the remaining 20% as protein) at which limit Dr. Andersson started to feel unwell. The famous pemmican advocated by Stephenson is close to that limit.

And vitamin A is another well known example although I haven’t read anything convincing about anyone who has died from overdoses, e.g. by consuming the liver of ice-bears but which has been speculated about.

Myself, I didn’t jump on the E-vitamin bandwagon hap-hazardously but did my research before doing it and found through reading Linus Pauling’s books that it had been used extensively and successfully on 40 000 angina patients at the Shute institute in Canada before the authorities made them close down the institute. Bottomline for me is that it works fine for myself on my angina at the 2400 IU level per day.

One man’s meat is another man’s passion. So resonating with different facets is what is relevant for me now. I have most of my life not taken drugs or supplemented vitamins and minerals, despite or because of a significantly challenging life. But at some point I uncovered what a lie is the world I was brought up to believe – even if I intuitively leaned away from it. This was and is greatly disturbing. WARNING! Could be a danger to health! Perhaps staying on the meds and diversions is an ignorant bliss? But I do not hold that true except in seeming as a false sense of hindsight. Disturbance is a potential awakener. Initiating a re-education that goes to a deeper honesty and commitment than following the ‘narrative’ of a consensual model.

Craig: The Cavendish banana has very little potassium: 2.19mg/g. 111th out of 112 in the list I prepared. Much better is the cooking banana (plantain), at 4.65 mg/g. Best of all are chocolate, nuts and seeds, figs, dates, and potatoes, ranging from 5.35 (potato) to 11.7 (chocolate). I refuse to eat the Cavendish banana, although when I’m in the Philippines, I eat a wide variety of bananas, which must have more potassium because they taste so much better!

Hi Jane
I had the same problem. And I do not know why it has happened. But I did ring Faulding in Melbourne who supplied it when it was in pharmacies.
Faulding are still making it and will arrange to supply a chemist is B3 Niacin is ordered. I did this and got three containers of high strength Vitamin B3 1000mg with 60 tablets in each.

Also I notice that B3 is now only available my local pharmacies in combination with something else and it costs a lot more

As a sufferer of gout and Achilles tendonitis I was taking Anti inflammatory tablets every day. Since taking “Calcium Plus With Vitamin D, Boron, and Magnesium I haven’t had a recurrence of gout or tendonitis for over two months.

Thank you, Goran, for your kind words. My radial angiogram showed no occlusions (in fact it didn’t show enough to explain why I had an MI) so I was discharged with the pharmaceuticals given to all cardiac patients. I was then extremely fortunate to get to see a doctor in our practice who was prepared to listen to me and to discuss with me which meds I needed to take. He did not blanch at LC/HF, intermittent fasting, supplementation as per Dr K, or my refusal to touch a statin! I tackled the same hill on our road this morning on our usual dog walk – the one where I was first aware that things were seriously awry last Thursday. It reminded me of getting back in the saddle after being thrown from the horse!

smartersig:
I’m nearly 71, retired and living with my husband and English Springer Spaniel. After doing a great deal of research, and discovering Dr Kendrick, I learnt how to get my husband off Warfarin and statins after he was diagnosed with AF. We prepare virtually everything from scratch; sourdough breads, kefir, sourkrauts, kimchi,beet kvass and all our meals. We have found ourselves eating less meat these days, and what we eat tends to be organic. We 2/5 and eat our meals within a 8-10 hour window. We only have coconut and olive oils. We supplement with vitamins D3, K2, C, E, and Bs, CoQ10, Lysine, serrapeptase, astaxanthin and a number of enzymes and eat a good amount of garlic, ginger, pomegranate, nuts, seeds, sprouted seeds and turmeric.
We walk the dog daily for at least 2 miles, often 4 miles. The other intervention we have made is to chuck out virtually all commercial personal and household cleaners. A very happy existence!

Good for you Fredrica but keep quite about the meat 🙂
Wish I could get my 91 year old Mother off Warfarrin but probably have to settle for getting her to bin statins. By the way I have taken your advise and sacked the household cleaner, she is on the first plane back to Thai Land

Would really love to know which research you found to get off warfarin?
I need to try the same route if possible.
And, what you do to maintain appropriate INR levels?
(have to pass the doc’s beady eye)

I’m afraid that I was fairly ad-hoc. I substituted nattokinase and serrapeptase, along with such foods as raw garlic, turmeric and ginger whilst my husband lowered his Warfarin. I would recommend looking into the two enzymes, but with the proviso that one use the supplement nattokinase instead of the fermented soy from which it comes, as it is very slimy and not to occidental taste!

As it happened, we never got to prove the effectiveness, as my husband was taken off Warfarin after his post-op ECG six weeks after his ablation. For the past two years we have continued taking serrapeptase and consuming garlic, turmeric and ginger.

If there are not resources for addressing AF – or other CVD issues – without pharma (or with reduced/reducing pharma), then there needs be. Magnesium is something that I see being a factor as the regulation of calcium. I believe ongoing stress/anxiety uses up magnesium and some levels of anxiety may run as a background that becomes as if normal – but is not natural. Nor deserves to be adapted to.

The timing of the heartbeat is also an electrical event and the salts are key in blood electrical activity – while I believe cell membranes (cholesterol et al) and structural matrixes (collagen et al) are also serving as whole body intercommunication. In one sense I see health as restore communication of a whole in all its parts. (Coherence – as termed by Heartmath).
Omega3 offers some anticoagulance with less adversity than aspirin. (As well as setting its relation to Omega 6 is in due ratio). And of course warfarin may give a much less adverse effect if balanced with K2.

I don’t suggest to ‘know’ the ‘answer’ so much as to indicate that legally protected authorised ‘knowledge’ is largely biased to seek and only find ‘answers’ that serve its own self-interests. And so a self-directed and shared re-education is initiated in the interest of all, that may or may not bring the revision of a deeply flawed (falsely floored 😉 model. But I am at least no longer marching to an out of timed beat.

I don’t depend on (or seek to exploit) a top-down global group-think for funding or employ so I am free to question and explore and share the journey. The Medical Establishment is not so free. I found Tessa Jowell’s appeal in the House of Lords (to whom exactly?) a pathos of emotional entreaty from the powerless to ‘THEY who cant be named’. The resulting sympathy and veneration of her person, then diverted from who and what she sought to represent – health freedom for those with cancer AND those attending them (inc doctors). “Please let us be allowed to explore other remedy for ills whose archaic and barbarous ‘standard treatments’ are legally mandated and protected by law against change.

Ok we don’t (as far as I know) cut people’s hearts out and through them down the pyramid steps to appease ‘power’, but the core religion of sacrifice runs unchanged under perhaps a more complex priesthood. Perhaps the fear we give power to, works the corruption of power.

Frederica Huxley: I’m now fermenting together garlic, fresh turmeric root, and fresh ginger root. It was a smash hit over the Christmas holidays, and I have some on my eggs every day. I put it into the small (pint size) jars. I don’t bother peeling the cloves. It’s too much bother, and the clove skins are rich in nutrients and become nicely softened in the ferment. On your recommendation, I’m going to go back to eating natto, as dreadful as it is; I can tolerate a bit of it, and I don’t know where to get the enzyme.

I’m sorry to hear that the food is awful in the UK hospitals as it is here. Or, perhaps you have not fallen down quite so far as we have! The wrost food is served on American airlines, Even the British airline I once flew on had better food.

Great article, thank you. When you have been around for as long as I have (75) its not difficult to see how things have changed in that time, not only in what people eat, but the amount of prescription drugs they consume on a daily basis in the hope that they will prolong life and avoid stroke, heart attack etc. There are very few people I know who do not take at least some (or all) of the most prescribed, Statins, CCB’s (or similar), PPI’s and antidepressants. Most people will know that prescription drugs have side-effects, presumably contained within the PIL, but is it generally known within the NHS that they also deplete the body of essential nutrients. If the nutrient loss for each drug were known, wouldn’t it make sense to supplement – perhaps this would reduce the health risk that prescription drugs pose.
There is an interesting book called “Drug Muggers” by Suzy Cohen (an American pharmacist), which I haven’t read as I don’t take any prescription medication but I have read information from her website (or Blog).

After over ten years of studying and taking supplements I am firmly convinced that I need to take them. They have helped with many conditions. IMO, you can’t just take one or two as imbalances will occur. Take the Vitamin B’s for example, there are eight different Vitamin B’s and if you only take a few of Vitamin B’s an imbalance will occur with the other B’s. The best source of supplement studies that I have found is a website called examine.com where they list most of the common supplements and numerous studies of each one are given.

There seems to be a number of confusing statements in the article.
(1 example: “Vitamin K can be found in dark green vegetables, matcha tea and natto (fermented soybeans”).
Source: NATTO: The Fermented Soy Superfood – Dr. Axehttps://draxe.com/natto/
Feb 16, 2015 – While natto’s appearance may not leave a very good first impression, its nutrition is well worth giving it a chance. Natto is as an excellent source of protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals. (2) Additionally, the Bacillus subtilis in natto creates an enzyme called nattokinase, which produces vitamin K2

Do you know how to contact them with comments / questions?

My problem is that I can find no means of response to examine.com to question the statements made in the vitamin K article.

While both are called Viatmin K – and both take some part in regulating the coagulation properties of blood. I associate K1 as the primary coagulation regulator. K2 was discovered later. Perhaps someone here can say why it is also called Vitamin K but it has different roles – including the transport of calcium to where it rightly serves purpose or is needed, moving it from where it does not belong – such as soft tissues and arterial plaques. As I understand, Weston Price identified ‘activator X’ made from spring grass fed butter, that he found to be a catalyst to many other vitamin functions in the body. Agent X can now be identified as Vitamin K2.

Loose talk of ‘vitamin K’ that does not identify specifically K1 or K2 will sow a detrimental confusion until the core knowledge of the differences – and their sources is part of the culture.

K2 may well be the explanation behind the ‘French paradox’ in terms of CVD stats.

On a personal note; I have recently identified a brand of K2 Mk7 with waking in the night and chest discomfort . (My partner has no issues with it). I changed to Life Extension K complex and the issue is completely gone. I came across similar reports in a book about taking massive amounts of vit D – in which the author incorporated and revised his material across a reader base of reports.

I eat a lot of K1 providing foods that are also rich in other benefits. In the swings and roundabouts of what is good/not good, vit K2 adds value to some butters and cheeses.

When will the internet be revised and brought up to date?
All kinds of disinformation persists and if anything, multiplies through ignorance, laziness and strategic corporo-political intent.

robert lipp: Read Dr. Mercola’s interview with Dr. Kate Rheume-Bleu, or read her book. The authors of the article you mention were a bit sloppy in their editing. K1 is abundant in leafy green vegetables; K2 is made from K1 by the intestinal microbes in mammals. So we can get it from dairy foods and natto, since the bacterium which ferments natto also converts K1 to K2.

I particularly agree that many authoritative articles confuse the situation between K, K1 and K2(MK4, MK7) particularly by indiscriminate conflicted use of K only when they sometimes mean K1 and sometimes K2. It is extremely frustrating and potentially confusing to less informed readers. It could be dangerous. But when I point out this confusion I am either ignored or abused. Sad. It is for this reason that I no longer use Authority Nutrition/HealthLine. The were a good reference.

Hence, I was hoping to engage examine.com on this confusing matter.

Do you have a means of contacting them?

What it means to me (incorrect/ errors/confusion and inability to engage) is that I CANNOT TRUST examine.com.

I am unlikely to read the other articles which may sad to say be good.

On the internet we all have to be very careful of the information we read. I test the information by researching something about which I know a reasonable amount. Many sites fail this simple test.

Binra, K1 and K2 molecules “look” similar and this may have caused the initial confusion.

PS having just read your linked article to C.J on V K2, I was moved that he acknowledged W Price and the nuanced qualifications for quality of food. That issue came up in a Mercola interview I watched last night, focusing on the history and nature of intensive chicken farming and adverse health issues – which was worth watching in my opinion. (Not about Vit K2 – but the same economic and legal infrastructures operate what could be called the fake food industry).
This interview also has an illuminating glimpse into the fact that animal husbandry has already done a lot of research on the nature and interactions of vitamins and minerals with controlled trials that would be almost impossible to reproduce in human studies. It also had a very interesting discovery from when certain large scale operations stopped routine antibiotics as a way to suppress the sickness that such living conditions generates.

(Youtube tip to the obvious (?) I often find 1.25 playback speed works fine for slower talkers).

Hi Bill – I know from experience how easy it is to miss out one of the vital steps for receiving all the replies. A couple of times I’ve not ticked the necessary boxes or, more importantly and more easily done, not ticked “confirm follow” in the follow-up WordPress email. Just a thought.
JB

Bill in Oz, Have you tried with a different browser? (in case something in the cookies – or content blocking extension is blocking function). If that works, go back and clear the relevant cookies or exempt this site from the content blocker from your preferred browser.

The other possible issue could be the account you sign in with. My WordPress account gave me endless hassle so I now – mostly – use my twitter login.

I did not know until a particularly frustrating day of not being able to get hardly any of my posts through to appear as ‘awaiting moderation’, that I can reply to an email by email and it comes through. In that case I still need to get at least one message through into the site and the checkbox ticked for receiving replies. Email reply ‘above the line’ then posts into this site as ‘Brian Steere’ – which should be obvious as I am recognisably me in my writing – but I felt to state this openly in case it was felt to be underhand.

Dr.K,
You say [that many studies have shown that] “potassium reduces blood pressure and, in turn, reduces the risk of CVD and overall mortality” – ‘in turn’ seems to imply that you accept that blood pressure is directly correlated with (causing?) CVD/risk whereas in previous posts, books etc.
you seem have argued so as to weaken this angle.

For example you previously highlighted the work of the statisticians who refuted the linear risk model (sorry don’t have their names/papers on the tip of my tongue) and, apart from the more extreme ends of the scale, you appeared to be saying that you considered ok/healthy blood pressure is a much looser/larger range (and dependent on sex and age), pointing out that blood pressure in itself is just a measurement not a disease, is a surrogate end point for treatment etc.

However you have also discussed along the way the mechanical forces on the walls of arteries/veins, turbulence points etc. (not necessarily straightforwardly linked to the traditional BP measurement I suspect) as potential cause of damage / sites for plaque buildup.

I appreciate this is interpreting from just a couple of words here in this blog post that could be mis/interpreted various ways, eg. perhaps you were you were paraphrasing the view of the studies rather than yourself (?), but it seems like you accept a direct relationship between BP and CV risk? Maybe you always did – but over time I have become increasingly confused on this point (doesn’t take much). Could you clarify your current view?

A raised blood pressure is an indicator of an underlying problem. At a certain level it becomes a problem in itself – but that level is higher than generally accepted. If you lower the blood pressure with potassium, this is a sign that you are having benefits on an underlying problem, which is a good thing.

But, Doc,
how much is too much of a good thing?
Lately my arrhythmia doctor has been trying to scare me about the dangers of potassium supplementation to my kidneys and the effect on my dofetilide dosing and risky rhythms. I quit the potassium, my BP is up, all else is fine.
How far can I throw… uh… trust… this guy?

“If you lower the blood pressure with [x], this is a sign that you are having benefits on an underlying problem, which is a good thing.”

So if we substitute ‘big pharma BP meds’ for X then you are in favour by the same token?

I suppose the answer in the context of this blog post would be that it’s only A Good Thing in the case of Harmless Vitamins (potassium) without the costs, side effects etc. so what’s not to like?

But it does seem slightly at odds with ‘You Absolutely Cannot Be Healthy Any More – It’s Official’ and related discussions where there was identified (from the work of Port et al.) a middle ground range of BP values (thresholds depending on sex and age) that were not significantly correlated with mortality, and therefore NOT automatically representing an underlying problem surely? Reducing BP in these ranges is therefore not a sign you are having benefits on an underlying problem.

A reasonable consensus seems to be that potassium is pretty harmless and impressively beneficial in terms of reduced mortality (hopefully not morality) – but in the absence of any clarity as to the causal chains involved then the blood pressure bit just seems to muddy the water. Or did I miss something and there is a clear causality with BP?

I have to be careful, like some others here, with potassium. But my doctor now wants to put me on lisinopril (which has been listed amongst the top 5 most dangerous drugs recently) and I am loathe to take them. We tried losartan but that gave me headaches, although I’ll take a headache from a safer drug than whatever the lisinopril might bring. Without going into too much fanfare, which do you feel is the safer drug of those two? Thanks for any input.

BTW, I do take a potassium and magnesium supplement but if I go too far above the “recommended dose” I have trouble – like side effects, I guess you’d say. Do you think potassium would still be useful in split doses?

sundancer55: A caution. Potassium supplements are contra-indicated with ACE inhibitors (those which end in -pril), because one of the effects is to retain potassium. I took BP drugs for about two decades, but weaned off of the last one (lisinopril) about 18 months ago. I did so with great confidence that it was a good idea, having read Port, et al., Joel Kauffman’s book, and Spacedoc and Dr. Kendrick’s posts about hypertension.

biddy99: For weaning I followed the protocol in Sherry A. Rogers, M.D.’s “The High Blood Pressure Hoax.” Something like taking a half-dose for a few weeks, followed by a half-dose every other day for a few weeks. I don’t think not taking it made much difference, but I don’t really know because my BP is never taken correctly at the doctor’s office. I feel really good, really healthy, and I think I’m better off without the drug and with the potassium supplement. I don’t want to take any drugs! I studied the issue extensively enough to be completely confident that it was a good idea. I’m also fortunate to have a great GP, who never pressures the patients to take medical interventions, and the continuity of almost 30 years of her guidance.

@ Gary O. & Dr. K: I’m not taking the lisinopril, my doctor just talked about putting me on it and I have, thus far, refused, although am still trying to find a more natural way to control moderately high BP lately. I was hoping the mag/potass would be the answer or at least more helpful than it has been. I have tried a few other “natural” things that haven’t worked either, and am lately using the beet root powder to increase NO and that might show some improvement in a while, don’t know yet.

From what I’ve been able to read, losartan is from a different class of drugs (not an ace inhibitor) so I should be ok if I start taking that junk, as much as I don’t want to, and still using potassium/magnesium supplements. The potassium in my supplement is only about 50 mg per capsule (the label is misleading, as many are, because it shows 99 mg but that involves taking 2 capsules) and I generally take one per day, and I also take a magnesium asporotate later in the day which has nothing else in it except pure mag. It used to contain alfalfa but no longer has that for some reason. But only taking 50mg of potassium daily probably isn’t going to show much benefit either. I think I should just stick with the plain mag and call it a day, huh?

If I have an “underlying” medical condition to the HBP, I would have no clue what it is because I otherwise enjoy good health, so it seems.

sundancer55: Losartan is an angiotensin II-receptor antagonist. These are the newest of antihypertensive drugs. They prevent angiotensin II from causing contraction of smooth muscle in blood vessels, and also act as diuretics. Adverse effects: Dizziness, hypotension, or liver and kidney damage or heart failure. Less effective in African-Americans. Possible that these (and ACE inhibitors) may provide some of their benefits by raising serum potassium levels (all from Joel M. Kauffman, PhD., “Malignant Medical Myths”). One adverse effect Dr. Kauffman doesn’t mention, but is true of all diuretics (including coffee and tea), is that they can gradually deplete other essential minerals, such as magnesium, even sodium.
It appears that these drugs, like ACE inhibitors, cause potassium retention, so supplementing while on them may not be a good idea. I suggest reading everything you can get your hands on before deciding to take any BP drug, starting with Port, et al. I can provide the link if you’re interested.

What about Epsom salts for magnesium? My dad used to take, “as much as will fit on a sixpence”, but not sure how often and I think it was only for bowel function and not deficiency. He wouldn’t have know about deficiencies in those days.

I soak my feet in either Epsom salts (mag sulfate) or magnesium chloride flakes rather than taking those things internally. I take magnesium supplements but never over 325 mg per day or I spend a lot of time visiting john. 8)

Something just occurred to me in all this vitamin/mineral stuff. I grow a lot of my own food and have a composting toilet, where everything that goes through me gets composted and returned to the soil where I grow my food. So any excesses exiting eventually find their way back into the system where they cycle round and round. Hadn’t thought of that before. I’m chuffed!

Viruses cause heart attacks ! Here are the opening pars of a new article on Medscape:
“BOSTON — Patients with laboratory-confirmed influenza were about six times as likely to be admitted for acute MI in the following 7 days compared with the period comprising the prior and subsequent years, results of a cohort study show.[1]

The risk was especially pronounced in older patients and was independent of flu vaccination status or history of MI hospitalization. There was also a signal that other forms of respiratory infection can similarly raise the risk for MI admission.

The findings are consistent with a lot of prior research, acknowledged Dr Jeffrey C Kwong (University of Toronto, ON), but much of it associated MI with acute respiratory infections by undetermined pathogens, or with other indirect indicators of flu.”

Of course. Almost all infections will create a high level of exotoxins in the blood which will damage the endothelium and create a temporary pro-coagulant state. People are more likely to die of an MI in the seven days following an earthquake. This is due to increased sympathetic and stress hormone activity, which does exactly the same thing.

First, thanks to Dr K for this and all his very readable prose. His writing, both here and in his books is truly a joy to read, both for presentation and content.

Second, I wonder if “vitamin-mania” isn’t in large part related to consumption of many processed grains. I have read, though I haven’t pursued the information, that a standard high-carb diet including grains requires more vitamin and possibly mineral activity across the board than a low-carb-high-saturated fat diet. If true, those of us in the low-carb camp can possibly still thrive on a fairly typical multi-vitamin supplement which is just that — a supplement.

Finally, I recall reading a book in the 1970’s, the title of which I don’t recall, which argued that most people suffered from subclinical deficiencies of various vitamins. This caused the body to “adapt” to the deficiencies in order to get by. I suppose this adaptation is analogous to the adaption to a low-calorie diet, to which the body may adapt by restricting energy expenditure.

The solution to the sub-clinical deficiency adaption was supposed to be high doses of the deficient vitamins temporarily to “shock” the body into breaking out of the sub-clinical deficiency state. After a time, the high dosages could be reduced or abandoned because the deficiency condition had been reversed. I don’t know how correct the idea is, but for a time I took a high-dose vitamin B-complex pill.

I didn’t feel any differently, but I do recall I forgot to buy more B-complex at one point and after a few days had a tremendous craving for steak!

@ LA BOB: Why are you afraid of eating a steak?? If you can find pastured meat instead of the toxin-filled meat from the grocery stores, you should have absolutely no issue with eating a good, marbled, fatty steak.

I think you might have misunderstood. The point of my comment about craving steak was that I related it to a sudden drop-off of the B-complex I was taking. I might be wrong, of course, but I never recalled any prior craving for steak.

I was not at that time afraid to eat steak, and I am not afraid now. Far from it, although I prefer ground beef, lamb, and dairy (butter, sour cream, and cheese).

Ideally, we should get all our nutrients from food but the ‘good ol’ times’ where we could just catch bison are long gone and most of us rely on industrial agriculture and the intensive lifestock industry to supply nutrients. My background is horticulture – plant production and the situation is unfortunately that nowadays soil is only considered a medium to hold plants upright. Many decades of industrial agriculture has depleted our soils and chemical fertilisers only replace some of it. To make matters worse, residues of pesticides used interfere with nutrient absorption. There is most definitely a case for organic and biologic farming – which is another discussion altogether. Back to the take-home message: in a situation where our food is depleted in minerals and vitamins supplementation is recommended if not necessary. And as you outlined, it is safe and cheap.

How I love this blog. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU (I’m shouting….from the roof tops)
I supplement generously with VitC and haven’t had a cold in four years. (Actually, I haven’t had a cold since I ditched the statins.) with D3 and various others including aged garlic. I’m shockingly old (shocking to me, that is) but I feel well. Oh, and I eat real food and seriously low on carb which I feel is very important.
Thanks, doc.

This is fascinating to me, I have been prescribed Omeprazole due to testing positive for the bacteria that gives you stomach ulcers, a condition that killed my Grandmother in her thirties and nearly carried my Mother off, ten years ago. However I treat them like antacids and take one about once a week if I feel I need to. I am also on Keppra for Epilepsy and Thryoxine for an underactive Thyroid.
I have been taking a supplement of dried pig skin, mixed in a glass of water which I am convinced has helped with elbow pain, and most evenings before walking the two miles home from work, I eat a banana. Since eating a banana daily I have never once suffered from the low blood sugar shakes, that sometimes occur if I’ve eaten too many carbs, its good to know that I am also replacing missing magnesium.
I had stopped taking vitamin supplements such as C and D due to being told they were a waste of money, but I am going to rethink that as well.
I love this blog.

Omeprazole decreases B12 absorption, so you may want to ask for that tested next time you visit your GP – taking into consideration what Dr Kendrick says about our reference ranges, when you get your results.

Me too (also confused). (The existence of Helicobacter Pylori was established by a fearless australian medical researcher IIRC who infected himself and cured himself by administering antibiotics, overthrowing the accepted idea that bacteria could not live in the stomach etc.)

Or perhaps Omeprazole not quite so confusing… (Ref.Shelly’s post and some subsequent comments, incl.by me). Just to try and undo any unwarranted stoking of confusion I may have achieved, I’m coincidentally now being checked out myself for H.Pylori and Omeprazole has been prescribed, evidently not only used as part of a diagnostic process which might lead (if effective on the symptoms) to pursuing an H.Pylori test (albeit I am doing this straight away anyway), but also – according to the GP I have just seen – often used for a couple of weeks (?) during the treatment process too, in addition to nuking with antibiotics. So the Omeprazole presumably to subdue symptoms in the meantime while the antibiotics do their stuff, but/and I got the impression it was to minimise risks from reflux. Though why is it that one begins to doubt one’s memory of exactly what was said within half an hour of leaving the surgery?

If anyone is interested in research about vitamins and minerals that has been collated and is easy to access, there are worse places to go than here: http://www.examine.com

Type whatever supplement you are interested in to the search bar and up comes all the research they’ve compiled along with some brief notes on the robustness of the research etc. I find it incredibly useful to work out if there is any truth to some of the hype surrounding some supplements.

It is reassuring when a supplement has a measurable and desired effect on the body. I have personally found a few supp’s that have done this. This does not mean others are useless it just means that the following have had a measurable effect on me.

Vit B12 & Folate lowered my Homocysteine from 21 to 9
Vit C lowered my Lp(a), it went back up when I abstained and came down again when I resumed
Vit D3 + K2 bosted my Vit D levels from around 65 to 123, I decided this was higher than it need be so modified
Krill oil may have lowered my LDL, hard to say research says it does but mine lowered in conjunction with dietary change around 5 years ago

Might be of interest to others: the role of diet (and vitamin intake) on cancer growth –https://idmprogram.com/nutrition-and-cancer/
FTL: “A randomized controlled trial of folic acid supplementation to high risk patients came up with a shocking answer. Shockingly bad, that is. There was no protective effect to taking folic acid supplements. Further, it seemed to increase the risk of advanced cancer, and also increased the rate of having adenomas. Yowzers! Here researchers were trying to prevent cancer, and instead they gave patients more cancer. Worse was yet to come.

In 2009 the NORVIT trial of high dose folic acid and Vitamin B supplementation also showed MORE, not less, cancer. There was a 21% increase in cancer and a 38% increase in cancer death. Double Yowzers! Of course, with hindsight, this stands entirely to reason. Cancer cells reproduce at prodigious rates. This requires all sorts of growth factors and nutrients to grow. With lots of nutrients, the rapidly growing cancer cells are best able to take advantage. It’s like sprinkling fertilizers onto an empty field. You want grass, but the weeds (being the fastest growing plants) are the ones who take up the nutrients and grow like, well, weeds. Cancer cells are highly active and grows like, well, weeds.”

If you have a significant pharma or other toxic intake, this also will recycle. I expect there are plants and bacteria or fungi etc that will be able to break down convert or bind up toxins – but that is a science as yet in embryo.

Are you aware of the folic acid v folate issue? My sense of the former when NOT strictly food derived is indeed associated with at least ‘pre cancerous’ conditions and so I would expect your linked study refers to that.

I note your view of cancer as weeds and the vits as weedfood. I don’t share it.

Unless a study is reported from someone I trust who has looked into it – such as Malcolm or Gotzche etc – I tend to presume it guilty until proven innocent.
However, B vits were recently associated with counteracting traffic pollution effects in inner city areas, and vit C with counteracting a significant payload hit of smoking tobacco.

It seems clear to me that there are very many variables such that susceptibility to disease and benefit from diet (inc supps) are not the same in different people. Even Generalised ‘risk factors’ may help some in avoiding adverse issues and condemn others to anxiety and depression.

I’m also aware that crises operate a feedback system – as may symptoms. But if risk aversion leads to symptom suppression, the cure is more deadly than the disease in my opinion.

“Symptoms…. it’s life Jim – but not as we know it!”.
“Set phasers to kill!”

I’ve met of a lot of anecdotal support for folate rich diet helping remission of cancer. It may be that not feeding fear and not reacting with chemo and radiation means passing through fear instead of trying to blast or poison the fear out of existence. Embracing wholeness of a natural sense of alignment in being is more than a placebo – for we really do have a fear chemistry that is intensified in war and not obliterated by it – although all other concerns may be pushed out of awareness – and that to my mind is the danger; letting fear make our decisions while all other perspectives are pushed aside.

All vectors of information have potential validity but it is the individual who decides – or rather accepts a course of action as desirable. Giving that decision to others to make, (experts or cranks or both), is still the individual’s decision. Huge vested interest operates over the ‘cancer industry’ – witness T Jowell pleading that cancer patients be allowed to access ‘experimental’ treatments. ‘Medical’ tyranny.

Folic acid fortification has been researched in the near past as it appears to be a compounding factor or promoter of colon cancer formation, one of the main reasons as to why fortification in first world contries has been thrown into academic disrepute and reduced consumption recommended during colon cancer.[143] It does not appear to promote colon cancer in all situations and, when compared to folate insufficiency, having normal levels of folate in the diet is actually protective against colon cancer;[144][145] conferring about a 40% reduction in colorectal cancer risk when folate is adequate[146] with at least one study noting up to a 75% risk reduction when women took a multivitamin containing 400 μg folic acid when measured after 15 years (no effect within the first four years of observation).[147]

Despite these protective effects one clinical trial administering folic acid (1,000mg) to patients with a history of colorectal adenomas found that, over the course of 3-5 years, that folic acid not only failed to reduce the incidents of colorectal adenomas but when the researchers looked specifically at “having 3+ adenomas” or for noncolorectal cancers folic acid actually appeared to increase risk.[148]

Population-wide studies assessing folic acid fortifification have found that, in Chile (220µg folic acid per 100g wheat flour), increased rates of colon cancer during three years of assessment after fortification (2001-2004) when compared to years in the same population prior to fortification (1992-1996) found a relative increase in the rates of colon cancer in the time frame associated with folic acid supplementation (162-192% increase depending on age group).[149] Similar results have been found in Canada and the US but these countries use less fortification (150 and 140µg per 100g wheat flour; respectively)[150] and while overall rates of colorectal cancer are declining in first world nations both Canada and the US have very apparent spikes in frequency at the time when folic acid fortification was introduced.[150]

When it comes to risk of developing colon cancer folate/folic acid appear to be a double-edged sword. Having optimal folate intake in your diet appears to be highly protective when compared to low folate intake but having more folate than is necessary actually appears to promote colon cancer caused by other sources; due to this duality, folate is both an anticancer agent and a cocarcinogen depending on the body’s overall exposure to it.”

Hi, Binra. FTL means “from the link,” which is also why the paragraphs are in quotation marks. I would never to presume to speak for Dr. Kendrick, but I have assumed that he and Jason Fung share similar ideas in regard to fasting and health. Fung is more focused on a broad range of health benefits, not just heart health, so cancer more focal for him. I think he’s worth reading, and the studies he cites are worth considering.

I would like to point out another benefit to vitamin D, as a prevention and treatment of tuberculosis. In an article I referenced in the previous blog #44, in Scientific American in November 2007 titled “Cell Defenses and the Sunshine Vitamin” by Luz E. Tavern-Mendoza and John H. White, the authors wrote about work performed at the University of California, Los Angeles, showing that human immune cells, in response to bacterial cell walls, manufacture vitamin D response proteins and convert circulating 25D to biologically active 1,25D, and produce cathelicidin, a antimicrobial peptide, that attacks the bacteria. One bacteria in particular that was attacked was mycobacterium tuberculosis. The authors wrote, “Thus for the first time, the group revealed a plausible basis for the mysterious efficacy of the tuberculosis sunshine cure: the sun-soaked convalescents’ vitamin D boost could have provided their immune cells with the raw material needed to generate a natural antibiotic that fought off the TB bacteria.”

I have read in some articles that TB is making a comeback, perhaps because of spending too much time indoors, and low vitamin D supplementation.

Dr. K has never said that blood pressure does not matter at all, but simply that it is often controlled too tightly by the medical industry. And while a somewhat high blood pressure may be well tolerated, it may also be a point on a spectrum for an individual in which they will subsequently go higher. So it can indicate, at least, a developing problem.

To say that if someone responds well to potassium with lower blood pressure indicates correction of a problem, is not at all the same as saying that if you give a synthetic chemical that interferes with bodily processes and forces pressure down, that you have also corrected a problem. You precisely have not – you have masked a symptom with a drug.
Most of us probably don’t get enough potassium, a major electrolyte of the body, whereas, so far as I know, there are no deficiency diseases due to lack of pharmaceutical drugs.

Thank you for this blog entry and to the contributors in the comments.

Re. Prokardia, I can see why it would fail – too many supplements packaged into one tablet. For those of us that do their own research, it would take forever to decide whether all, or which, were needed and if the doses were right. For the masses who don’t do their own research, if the list wasn’t too overwhelming, they’d potentially have to put up with being ridiculed for needing so many supplements, have to deal with family / friends adding their ‘expert’ opinion based on ‘facts’ from the Daily Express, etc., or have their health care provider tell them that X &/or Y was unnecessary / affected this or that / interacted with Z, was making expensive pee, ….., or whatever. Also taking something 4 times a day would involve far too much effort for most of the people I know.

About 10 years ago, I met with a friend who, about half way through the morning, took a ‘handful’ of supplement ‘pills’ (only thing I remember from the conversation was zinc). Back then I would have trotted out the not needing anything with a balanced diet. I’ve, to date, always been healthy but back then I was low-fat, grain centric (having fallen hook, line and sinker for the con of this being the heart healthy ‘balanced’ way of eating).

It has taken me much researching to get over my deep reluctance to start supplementing – my primary approach is to eat real nutrient dense food. In terms of supplementing, which is tailored for me, I’ve found that until I’ve read so much on a subject that I become totally and utterly ‘paralysed’ by information that I’ve not done enough research on the topic. For those that may be interested, my supplementing has developed over the last 3 or so years to:

* At least 85% chocolate – wouldn’t have touched dark chocolate not so long ago, now it’s the bees knees (I kid myself that it is a supplement rather than a daily staple). Minimum of 25g, and often 50+g, for the range of minerals. [One downside is iron but see coffee below.]

* Coffee – decided my iron level / in-take was too high (some history of Parkinson’s in the family) so started drinking coffee as part of my iron management.

* Salt – after 30 or so years of being salt phobic, now sea salt food.

* Vitamin C – have a kg bag of the power. Take up to around quarter of a teaspoon of the power neat before breakfast (whatever time that is).

* Vitamin D – did once buy the vitamin D3/K2 spray but now rely on getting a good stock of D during the summer. Take the occasional cod liver oil capsule during the winter months.

* Iodine –short story is that it took months of reading before getting round to iodine supplementing. Started with kelp tablets but have progressed to the Lugol’s solution.

* Potassium – have a bag of potassium bicarbonate. Hit and miss as to taking this (believe I’m OK for potassium) but this January have moved to dissolving up to a quarter of a teaspoon in half a small glass of water late in the evening.

* Magnesium – again, starting this January, added a 100 mg magnesium (citrate) tablet which I take with the potassium drink (partly because I’ve made an extra conscious effort to avoid starches & fructose during ‘dry’ January and second because I found a container of tablets I got for my dad that need using up).

* Collagen – started adding a teaspoon of collagen into the first drink of the day (which is preferably a double cream coffee to be drunk while consuming 85+% chocolate).

I agree with almost everything you wrote, and those are some of the same supplements I use, along with beet root powder. I start my morning with a cup of warm lemon water, then graduate to my coffee (Grounds for Change.com) but I do not understand why drinking coffee has anything to do with your iron?? I don’t know if you’re a man or a woman but men, from what I’ve read, can only get rid of excess iron by donating blood. Can someone expound on that issue?

Clathrate: This is very similar to what I do. We have a local chocolatier who makes 100% from Ecuador. An acquired taste, but now I love it. About 32g/day, in divided dose (rich in both K and Mg). Iodine I get from RealSalt, mined in Utah. Magnesium from food and MgCl spray. Potassium bicarbonate 1/4 tsp., stirred into beet kvass twice a day for about 1.4g total . Vitamin C 3/4 tsp. stirred into mineral water, and sipped throughout the day, for 3g/day. Vitamin D in winter 4,000 IU, in divided dose. I think as we age we surely need certain supplements, but I don’t get carried away, trusting in the high-quality nutrient-dense food I stick with for most nutrients.

I had some blood tests undertaken in January 2013. The serum ferritin (test code XE24r) was 153 ug/l (ug/l = millionth of a gramme per litre, 1 ug/l = 1 ng/ml). The normal range was indicated as 23 – 540 ug/l.

Short story is, some time later, when I got looking into the result and researching iron (2 main motivations – (i) Parkinson’s in one grandparent and likewise on the in-law side & (ii) keep the hair on my head as long as possible), I concluded that my iron level was above optimal for what I wanted (though looking at the range it wouldn’t cross your mind at first glance). After a failed attempt at giving blood (would have been my first time but for my vein being ‘too deep, too narrow and too strong’ {???}), I went to the doctors and asked for a therapeutic phlebotomy. Doc was most reluctant – had told her I was managing iron through coffee (more on coffee below) and not eating any fortified foods (except for rice crispies which have since been permanently ditched) – and she wanted to test my serum ferritin again after a few more months of this regime. A test in April 2014 showed it was down at 88 ug/l (still a bit higher than I’d wanted) and the doc was amazed. [Side note – I dropped her off an envelope at the Practice with copies papers re. elevated ferritin & Parkinson’s.]

Above is a bit of a digression – there are a number of foods that inhibit iron adsorption (though I gave up fortified foods, I eat plenty of red meat & liver, etc.). There are lots of studies out there that show that coffee can reduce iron adsorption. Hence why I started to drink coffee after being tea only.

Another digression – a couple of years after the failed blood donation attempt, I got an email asking why don’t I try again. So I did, thinking no harm in getting rid of more iron (only to remember, cycling in to the appointment, that my iron levels might not be high enough to donate). Short story #2 – the pre-test they do with the drop of blood in copper sulphate solution failed the test (was gutted) and asked for a meter test. Need a haemoglobin concentration of 125+ g/l if female and either 130+ or 135+ g/l for a bloke – I was in between limits and they wouldn’t take blood (even though I half-heartedly protested that had I been a women the blood would have been acceptable & that I didn’t think they distinguished between sexes blood to recipients).

Further aside – if anyone wants any references for iron, would be happy to provide.

Book recommendation – I like to see these so here is one ‘Survival of the Sickest – a medical maverick discovers why we need disease’ by Dr Sharon Moalem with Jonathan Prince (seems also to be a version under a slightly different name). I’ve got the 2007 edition (which appears to be available £2.71 new hardback on the site that exploits all the tax loopholes and 99p on kindle). Anyhow, Chapter One is ‘Ironing it out’ – well worth a read.

Coffee and tea inhibit iron absorption, but this can be overcome by taking vitamin C with the same meal that contains the iron.
Milk, cheese and other milk products inhibit iron absorption that cannot be overcome by adding vitamin C. At least for iron contained in food it is that way. My iron was too low because of that. However when I started taking a multivitamin (with iron) and cheese during the same meal, I succeeded to raise my iron (ferritin) levels. Seems to depend on the form of iron whether milk products can inhibit it or not.

I haven’t read all the comments above, so someone may have already posted about the research that found that nutrient levels in food have fallen in the second half of the 20th century.
“A Kushi Institute analysis of nutrient data from 1975 to 1997 found that average calcium levels in 12 fresh vegetables dropped 27 percent; iron levels 37 percent; vitamin A levels 21 percent, and vitamin C levels 30 percent. A similar study of British nutrient data from 1930 to 1980, published in the British Food Journal,found that in 20 vegetables the average calcium content had declined 19 percent; iron 22 percent; and potassium 14 percent. Yet another study concluded that one would have to eat eight oranges today to derive the same amount of Vitamin A as our grandparents would have gotten from one.”https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/

On vitamin D, there are quite a few studies which have found that having an adequate serum level of vit D is protective against flu and colds, for all age groups. Here’s one for adults:-

“A blinded study of 198 healthy adults found that a vitamin D level of 38 ng/ml or higher (95nmol/L in UK units) during the fall/winter months had a two-fold reduction in risk of developing acute respiratory tract infections and a reduction in the overall number of days sick. The participants were asked to give monthly blood samples (they were blinded to the nutrient being tested) and also asked to report any acute respiratory tract infections. They were allowed to supplement or not, there were no directions. They were followed between 4 and 5 months. 18 people were able to keep their 25(OH)D above 38 ng/ml (95nmol/L) the whole study and of those people, 15 were completely free from any colds or flu!”
Here’s the studyhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2885414/
and the description I’ve copied is on this pagehttps://grassrootshealth.net/project/our-scientists/

Around 50 of the doctors and other scientists working on vitamin D have have called for action on the vitamin saying
“There are newly appreciated associations between vitamin D insufficiency and many other diseases, including tuberculosis, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, type-1 diabetes, high blood pressure, increased heart failure, myopathy, breast and other cancers ….
“It is projected that the incidence of many of these diseases could be reduced by 20%-50% or more, if the occurrence of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency were eradicated by increasing vitamin D intakes through increased UVB exposure, fortified foods or supplements. The appropriate intake of vitamin D required to effect a significant disease reduction depends on the individual’s age, race, lifestyle, and latitude of residence. The latest Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, 2010, indicates 10,000 IU/day is considered the NOAEL (no observed adverse effect level). 4000 IU/day can be considered a safe upper intake level for adults aged 19 and older.
“… Even in southern climates, 55% of African Americans and 22% of Caucasians are deficient.

“A Scientists’ Call to Action has been issued to alert the public to the importance to have vitamin D serum levels between 40 and 60 nanograms/milliliter (100-150 nanomoles/liter) to prevent these diseases. Implementing this level is safe and inexpensive.”https://grassrootshealth.net/project/our-scientists/

I think just taking it is what’s important. Sometimes these things get nitpicked to death and then people run away from the whole subject because they’re so confused. Just take it already and don’t worry about what every other critic online thinks because you can always find another opinion online saying exactly the opposite. That’s been my experience, especially where foods and supplements are concerned.

I had an MI five years ago and ever since have been an avid user of various supplements in the hope that they might help prevent a repeat MI. My favourites (for want of a better word) are Co Q10, turmeric, fish oil, lycopene, garlic, grape seed extract, hawthorn extract, vitamin K2 (this only a recent discovery) and magnesium. I can’t honestly say that I can discern any positive effect from any of them. But I’m still alive, and according to my fairly regular check-ups everything is OK, except for my very high heart calcium count (around 850 according to a recent heart CT scan), which is (presumably) what caused my MI in the first place. Vitamin K2 I have started taking in hope (as Dr K mentions) that it might reduce or at least help stabilise the calcium deposits. And I will start taking vitamin C after reading this blog. As Dr K mentions, one problem with supplements is that nobody seems to know how much is required to boost the effect, or indeed whether there is any quantifiable effect. I take them because I can afford them and they might help, and probably (I hope) don’t have any negative effects. Perhaps worth adding that I’m 56 years old and still lead a “normal” life, whatever that means. I enjoy a couple of glasses (+) of wine a day, still enjoy occasional excesses with friends, and exercise regularly – as I always have done.

It is my understanding that K2 has to be taken along with D3 for it to have a calcium busting effect. It actually moves the calcium from the arteries into the bones – that is my take on the whole effect, according to what I’ve been told and what I read. Maybe someone else can chime in about that?? I take 5,000 mg D3 + 90 mcg of K2 twice daily, together. My K2 is MK-7 from Jarrow and my D3 is from Healthy Origins. I buy through Vitacost, iherb or Amazon, depending on who has what I need at the time I need it.

I know the MK-7 is helpful for strong bones because I’ve fallen on the ice twice in the past 3 years and but for a bit of swelling, had no breaks or fractures or anything, and was up and walking like nothing was wrong within a day or so. People couldn’t believe it and my chiropractor says I have excellent bone structure for my age. I’m 64 and have been taking the combo of D3 and K2 for at least 4 or 5 years now. Of course, I also drink raw milk and consume raw milk cheeses and real raw milk butter, etc., and I’m sure that helps, as well. 😉

I would be interested to know who has taken a supp’ and got a measurable positive or perhaps negative response. By measurable I do not mean ‘I felt a lot better’. I mean a measurable bio marker changed. A list of such would be interesting. I have already stated mine –
Vit C Lp(a) went down
B12 & Folate Homocysteine went down
D3 + K2 Vit D levels went up

Higher end dose of D3 is calciferol – which ups your calcium intake – and by whatever route a higher calcium intake may be wise to be balanced with K2 – (and K2 is therefore desirable in our diet anyway). But the new study aired most recently and other sources also prompts increasing the magnesium or ensuring the magnesium ratio to calcium is not to low.

True Good Food would save all this manual guesswork. The health of the land was lost when King Arthur fell sick. Where is the Chalice of a true receptivity?

Dear Binra
The health of the land was lost when King Arthur fell sick. Where is the Chalice of a true Receptivity
My wife is far more intelligent than I am. I read the last two sentences of your post to her. She said that’s crazy. I was comforted because I had understood nothing.

You would be better off getting your calcium from veg or at least balancing it with dairy as dairy is acid forming within the body and this leads to calcium being robbed from the bones to counterbalance the Ph level. I am pretty sure that the highest dairy consuming countries have the highest incidence of bone fagility

Mark R: Just a note on how they measure stuff. On my bottle of D3 it says “25 mcg (1,000 IU).” I did not know this. Thus 1 mcg = 40 IU = 0.001 mg = 0.000001 g. I began taking D3 for the first time this winter (and only for winter). I began with 2,000 IU/day, but now have doubled it to 4,000. A bit cautious, perhaps, but I think this is sufficient for me. I get some from food sources, such as salmon and eggs.

Mark, I am wary of fish oil mainly because it is generally prone to going rancid soon after production so god knows what condition its in if you are buying it off the shelf where its been sat for who knows how long. I would have though refrigerating it would be best but better still might be Krill oil which does at least have the benefit of including Astaxanathin which will help safeguard against peroxidization.

The bottles are sealed under Nitrogen during manufacture and once they are opened they should be kept in the fridge and used within 45 days. Since each bottle contains nearly a month’s supply that should be OK.

None of these products are made in a chemical factory – they are natural product made from fish like sardines, anchovies or mackerel – or algae. Please forgive the commercial – to find out more, search online for “GreenVits”
.

Hi Smartersrig. The one I buy (as above) comes highly recommended for it’s purity and quality by Labdoor research. I’m no expert but I assume/hope that the softgel packaging keeps the oil in good condition, so long as temperature requirements etc are met. So many people around the world are taking these supplements – surely we would know about it if they often became rancid? I hope so!

Mark R: I suspect we wouldn’t know, for two reasons. 1. The damage from oxidized PUFA may take a long time to manifest in overt symptoms in small doses (the late Dr. Ron Schmid’s experience is instructive). 2. People are getting very small doses in their D3 supplements.

If you break one open to fully taste it and cannot detect rancidity, it is either in the spectrum of ok, or your discernment in taste isn’t trusted, developed or active.
Broken walnuts are usually rancid, where the halves usually are not. I can taste the difference.
E. V. Olive oil is famous for food fraud. I see Berio stacked high and cheap in the supermarket here and so I buy something else – usually Cretan organic as they have rich mineral soils.
Food fraud includes supplement fraud where what is sold is either diluted or cut or replaced with cheap and sometimes toxic substitutes.
How can we check that what we pay for is what we get?
We generally don’t individually have lab facilities or training. Nor is there an ‘economic’ support for doing so.

Krill oil did not agree with me AT ALL, so I started using Nordic Naturals ProDHA on the advice of my nutritional/naturopathic practitioner. I keep them in the freezer, take them with cold water and I don’t consume anything warm or hot for at least 1/2 hour after I take one because otherwise I burp fish oil something awful, but at least they agree with my tummy whereas the Krill oil did not. I take 2 per day, but I take one in the morning and another in the evening. With or without food didn’t seem to make an iota of difference in the burping. I have gotten now so I only take them every other day. I take a separate astaxanthin capsule which I also keep in the freezer.

As ever great reading from Malcolm . I go to work energized from fresh thinking . I regularly check and prescribe vitamin D and Magnesium . Any thought s ‘re Calcium supplementation ? the Calcichew stuff is nauseating anyhow. is it possible to get enough calcium in a good diet with lots of salmon sardines almonds leafy greens oranges plus or minus dairy ??
cheers Malcom .

Bit of a disappointment today, my previous blood test came in at 99 for oats and almond milk only and I thought that this may be due to the almond milk. Today I tested oats with water only and was kind of expecting around 85 to 90 but got a 101. Clearly the oats are making a fair contribution unlike white rice which previously came in at 82. I am away for a couple of weeks but will resume on return when I will test egg,onions,mushrooms and tomato breakfast. I will also test the high fiber bread only option as someone asked me to do that. At the moment coming in under 100 may be the sole domain of the egg breakfast as I cannot see me eating rice for breakfast, we will see.

One potential spoiler just reared its head. Wandered into the supermarket today and noticed that my usual oats (portugese basic brand) have 0.7g per 100g sugar whilst others eg scotch porridge oats have 12.7g, quite a difference. Now it occurred to me that the batch I am consuming, which we pour into a unmarked container, was not bought by me but by my partner who is notorious for not checking labels. She cannot remember what brand it was so I have bought my usual brand and will retest tomorrow using just water. If it comes in much lower then clearly there has been some in house sabotage going on 🙂

Just come across a review of the various oats on the selves and it appears they can vary from 25g per 100g !!! to 1.0g per 100g. A monster difference and how many people buy the high varieties completely unaware that they are eating coco pops

smartersig, are you sure this isn’t just an anomaly thrown up by the analysis. The figures may reflect the amount of sugars, but they need not be added sugars. In any case, it’s starch and sugars, with a few other things for good measure, and the starches are sooner or later processed into sugars.

Good point Notepad and maybe I just process them a bit quicker than the average person I dont know. If anyone would like to eat some oats with water and test I would be interested to hear their readings after 1 hour

smartersig: I just took a peek at the tin of rolled oats my wife has. It says: 1g/40g sugar, which would equal 2.5g/100g. It also lists 27g/40g carbohydrate; 5g/40g protein; 4g/40g fiber; and 3g/40g fat (half PUFA and half MUFA).

smartersig: Yes. 70% carbohydrate, which I find a bit alarming. By the way, I’m doing the “reduce the aluminum load” protocol, which I believe comes from Professor Exley’s team. Silica-rich water, 1.5 L in one hour, for at least five days. I am using Fiji water, which has 93 mg/L of silica. The protocol calls for a minimum of 30 mg/L, which is good because I can’t force more than about 1.25 L in in an hour. Interesting that it takes a few hours for it to come gushing forth.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with eating eggs unless you are allergic to them. People get such crazy notions.

Also, Gary, in one of your posts you were discussing carbs in oatmeal (or porridge) – – when you do that you have to remember to subtract the percentage of dietary fiber from the percentage of carbs. At least that used to be the way it was “advertised” on a LC food program. I don’t count carbs so this is just what I remember reading a few years ago.

Eat real, non-GMO foods of all varieties and you will be healthy. That is the bottom line.

Eggs are not off the hook, they have pro and neg studies associated with them. Take the following one for example where eggs did no worse on endothelial dysfunction than a macmuffin macdonalds breakfast but then again egg substitute resulted in significantly improved endothelial function. My feelings are that eggs in moderation may not be that bad but if you are looing for optimum health then there is enough conflicting evidence to suggest avoidance, which is the route I take. Others may want to risk it and consume eggs.

Sigh… eggs are not always eggs… If you eat factory farmed chicken eggs, don’t be in the least surprised to be a factory pharmed human. Humanity is receiving in just measure exactly as we set to play god from. As ye sow…

The cholesterol reference is a meaningless marker to make a target of – in my opinion. If you eat cholesterol, then your body (liver) doesn’t have to make so much.

I regard cholesterol as healthy and necessary but am aware that different transport systems operate under different conditions. The body seeks to balance its needs and priorities under whatever conditions. One of the things that comes up for me is that most everything is a node of various pathways.

A dalek’s eye view starts off exterminating the ‘enemy’ it sees as most everything natural because it is locked up in such absurd defences. Anything BUT look within.

I noted that Wikipedia doesn’t give the meaning of chole, so I looked until I found out.

Cholesterol, from the Ancient Greek chole- (bile) and stereos (solid) followed by the chemical suffix -ol for an alcohol, is an organic molecule. It is a sterol (or modified steroid), a type of lipid molecule, and is biosynthesized by all animal cells, because it is an essential structural component of all animal cell membranes; essential to maintain both membrane structural integrity and fluidity. Cholesterol enables animal cells to dispense with a cell wall (to protect membrane integrity and cell viability), thereby allowing animal cells to change shape and animals to move (unlike bacteria and plant cells, which are restricted by their cell walls). In addition to its importance for animal cell structure, cholesterol also serves as a precursor for the biosynthesis of steroid hormones and bile acids. Cholesterol is the principal sterol synthesized by all animals. In vertebrates, hepatic cells typically produce the greatest amounts.

Who mentioned Cholesterol Binra, not me. For what its worth I agree with Dr Chris Masterjohn who did his Phd in Lipidology. He feels that around 80% of folks adjust their Cholesterol production in response to increased consumption. I am in the 20%, when I consumed eggs and liver for a week (2 dinners of liver and eggs every morning for breakfast) my LDL went from 3.0 to 4.0. Whether that is good or bad is another debate

I followed your link to the study and read it, smartersig. I didn’t feel to presume what it did or did not say about what kind of ‘eggs’ were used without checking in case it did. The study rambles on about cholesterol.
Once ‘Authority’ sets a target up, all the little people have at it with a sense of impunity and moral fervour. So I don’t equate ‘morality’ with integrity. Generally I see morality invoked by those who wish to be seen to have ‘integrity’ by having at the bad guy, the smeared scapegoats and the non-conformist. When – in this case – the CON of the cholesterol marker is exposed. Where is all the ‘integrity’?
Malcolm does the best thing in wasting no time in aligning in a truer alignment when it becomes obvious. Immediate ‘repentance’ opens a fresh sense of a deeper alignment in an integrity of being. No call for apologies or justifications – but ‘here I am’ this is what I have accepted true – with what I now know. And of course there is always more to discover. Except for those who ‘already know’ and are defended against change by hook and by crook.

Binra, you seem to not only grasp hold of the wrong end of the stick but you also appear to run off into the distance with it. You are engaged in a different conversation topic to me so on this thread I cannot really help or interact

You linked to a study to support your current ideas on eggs.
I read the study, came back with the indeterminate nature of what is accepted as ‘eggs’ and noted the study was marker chasing cholesterol.
So without actually engaging any point I made you proceed to make a stick out of issues under discussion and imply I am simply ‘wrong’ as your way of wielding your stick.
If you simply want all eggs to be eggs regardless of provenance – just say so.
But I don’t need studies to convince me to not participate in factory farmed animal produce – and to wean where possible from BigAg.

OK – I thought you were off into breakfast choices and associating eggs with sickness (‘health risk’). My main point is that factory farmed eggs are qualitatively DIFFERENT from free range eggs and so the study such as it is – has little if any merit in my opinion.
Vit D has positive benefits for endothelial function – and there is some D in eggs – but also (under good conditions) most all that is needed to feed a new life.

Mercola is pro eggs as you will see below with some interesting cooking tips ie dont scramble them. For what its worth I eat eggs when I have to but not as a rule but I admit its not a big bone of contention.

Allowing the chickens and feedstuff is healthy – what is not good about eggs? Institutionally led fear and smear tactics imprint to fearful/gullible/weak minded.

What I didn’t know until recently is that egg white – albumin – is one of our best sources of precursor for serotonin.

Of course, if you don’t get on with eggs, eat something else.

We feasted for years on a soaked mixed organic grain muesli with seasonal fruits breakfast. Such blessings we have lived and shared. But at a given time we moved to release grains – except occasional rice. And cut down starches/carbs with a lot more raw food and good oils and fats. We then found we didn’t want breakfast until later which has migrated to about 1-2 pm. We still eat the likes of food that one never finds out in the catering supply (cafe/restaurants) as such blessings shared – but it changed – and remains an expanding scope of textures, flavours and freedom – or is that a more spacious sense of awareness in partaking of food?

sundancer55: I computed the percentage of carbohydrates in the rolled oats (70) by adding “carbohydrate” (27g) to “sugar” (1g) and dividing by 40 (28/40 = 0.7). All of these numbers on the label are in grams per serving. I don’t eat them, or any other grains, except on rare occasions sushi rice, and I don’t count anything, and rarely measure. I just eat nutrient-dense, whole foods.

Roisin, for what it is worth, my understanding is that generally we do not need to supplement with calcium. Sure, a few people are different and need to supplement. Generally, dairy and various vegetables provide sufficient source calcium. The key is to make sure that the source calcium goes to the correct location = bones and teeth. For this; take/ensure good levels of; magnesium, D3, and K2 to direct calcium correctly. It seems that some older persons are instructed to supplement with calcium when for whatever reason they are low in D and/or magnesium and/or K2; result the calcium goes to soft tissue, like arteries, instead of bones – damn.

The standard message is warfarin and K2 don’t mix comes from ignorance.
For those who dont know. My general understanding is:
I take warfarin (many years) and discovered that it promoted calcification. So I needed to take Vit D3 + magnesium + K2 to stop and hopefully reverse calcification.
Vit K1 aides blood clotting and has necessary good uses. Usual food source is veggies based.
Vit K2 is a similar molecule but different, so it does perform some additional clotting (how much I don’t know). Usual food source is animal based.

When I included K2 (at recommended dose) I watched my INR readings and had to increase warfarin dose by a small amount to offset K2 impact.
It works for me.

Smartersig,
Sorry I did not keep measurements (CAC score and K2 impact) to report back 🙂
I just assumed CAC would be high because of years of warfarin use (and age and past poor diet). Though blood pressure (possible indicator of arterial flexibility) on LCHF is good 115-125 / 70-80 (no meds).

Keep using Warfarin, don’t take the New Oral Anticoagulants (NOAC). They are poison. I warned my parents-in-law but my father-in-law kept using Rivaroxaban (Xarelto) (a NOAC) because a cardiologist had switched him to it without reason – he had always been doing well on Warfarin and there were no medical reasons to make the switch. December last year he died because of this poison.
In the US there are many lawsuits because many people got injured or died.

It would be very useful to know in what way the new anticoagulants (NOACS) are poisonous. How do they act? What are the symptoms? I am on Apixaban. My father died of first minor brain bleeds and then massive ones, while on warfarin. He also suffered massive nosebleeds, which I recently also experienced. One cardiologist said take aspirin, not Apixaban. Then the top consultant said, no, take Apixaban. Another one said they work in a very similar way. If the doctors are inconsistent, it is very hard to know what to do for AF. No drugs, Vit K2, D3? The same hospital also tried to persuade me back onto statins yesterday, as my cholesterol was “a bit high”… But I developed diabetes while on simvastatin, and had a severe kidney problem, muscle pain, etc, so, NO!

NOACS are risky because there are no antidotes, no remedy to counteract the effects of excessive bleeding that can be caused by NOACS.
There seems to be an experimental antidote, but as far as I can check it, it is still not approved for use.
The only NOAC that has an antidote ( idarucizumab) is dabigatran (Pradaxa).

The problem with not having an antidote is that when you start bleeding internally for some reason or when you have an accident, it will be hard to stop the bleeding as the effect of the NOAC cannot be undone.
With Warfarin it is different. Your father was very unfortunate, but there is an antidote for Warfarin and that is vitamin K.
Brain bleeds are always very dangerous, also for people on Warfarin – unfortunately it’s a real and serious complication that can develop, but at least with Warfarin, if you have an accident or a bleeding elsewhere in the body, being on Warfarin (and maybe also Pradaxa/dabigatran) could save your life as doctors can give an antidote to make sure that the bleeding stops more quickly.

People who have bleedings on NOACS that don’t have an antidote, get packed cells, but that is not as effective as an antidote to stop the bleeding.
Because of this absence of an antidote, people have died.

When the FDA approved the NOACS, there was no proof that they were better.
They were admitted on the grounds that they were “not inferior”…

Another “secret” that is kept away from patients is that people on Warfarin are usually well monitored while people on NOACS are usually not monitored for bleeding risk (the INR).
While this works for many (most?) people, not all people on NOACS have their blood in the right range as to bleeding/clotting risk and doctors have no good ways to measure their effects.

I think one who has a stable INR on Warfarin is safer on that drug than on the NOACS.
There now are studies saying NOACS have advantages but these are relatively small and can we trust the outcomes of these studies?

I am not a doctor, I cannot give you advice, but I do know that in AF it really is important to use medication to prevent blood clots as the risk of these clots are much higher than the risks of the medication.
However as I said, if you take all risks together (internal bleedings and the possibility of having an accident), Warfarin is safer because of the available antidote (though I understand the very unfortunate experience you had with your father makes you wary of this medication), and maybe dabigatran could be an alternative, too.
Aspirin is inferior compared to Warfarin and not recommended by most doctors. Moreover, aspirin causes can cause major bleeds, too.

Finally as to bleedings and Warfarin versus NOACS, one doctor said: One can better deal with the devil that one knows, than the devil that one doesn’t know, meaning both medications have their bleeding risks, but Warfarin has been used much longer and doctors have much more experience with it and a much better picture of its risks.
NOACS have only quite recently come onto the market.

Leon, thank you very much for giving such a considered and lengthy reply to my question about why NOACS are potentially dangerous. Much appreciated. I was in hospital two days ago with what they thought was a mini stroke caused by mini clots. No permanent damage, and no sign of any bleeding to the brain, on the brain scan. However, I had a massive nose bleed for two hours on Christmas day, having been told to double my Apixaban medication two weeks before that, which frightened me. One hospital doctor said all anti coagulants work the same way, not much difference; another said “take aspirin, it’s better than Apixaban; yet another said Apixaban is better but you must take enough to be a therapeutic dose. Hard to know what to do….

I am with you, Gay.
Afib is a lousy condition. Doing nothing is too risky while anticoagulation therapy also has its risks.
Maybe you could consider asking your doctor to switch you to Dabigatran/Pradaxa?
At least for that NOAC there is an antidote in case you have an accident or internal bleeding.

Gay,
When on this quest, remember that each of us is unique. The response YOU have to any medication is not NECESSARILY going to be the same as anyone else’s – even relations.
A great friend of mine had an ischemic stroke due to “silent” atrial fibrillation. He was put on warfarin and slowly got most of his capacity back. A decade later – still on warfarin – he had a hemorrhagic stroke.
I, myself, was put on warfarin for AF. Could not keep in INR range, vitamin K2 notwithstanding. Was put on dabigatran. After 6 days, I had 6 months of diarrhea! Was then put on rivaroxaban. Fine, except it was listed as having interactions with another med I was taking. Now on apixaban for the last few years. No issues. I’m a woodworker and regularly get cuts and gashes. No scary bleeding. The Xa NOACs don’t work that way.
All the factor Xa NOACs are at least as good as warfarin in preventing ischemic stroke.
All of them – and particularly apixaban – are better than warfarin in preventing hemorrhagic stroke – brain bleed.
Aspirin is an anti-platelet, almost useless as a true anti-coagulant.

All this is out there in the research. PubMed, Medscape, Medpage. On and on.

It might be different for you, maybe the NOAC you are taking isn’t working well at all, who knows, but it is not true that NOACS cannot cause serious bleeding when you cut yourself or have an accident. It happens with Warfarin, it happens with NOACS:

The difference is that for Warfarin there is an antidote, not for the NOACS, except for Dabigatran but I read that its antidote is not always readily available. This contrary to vitamin K, the antidote for Warfarin.

Yes, studies indicate NOACS cause less hemorrhagic stroke, but a doctor who is positive about NOACS, admits:

“Caveats and Doubters Remain
Yet nothing in science and medicine is certain. Every medical decision should be couched in probabilistic terms. There are smart people who remain less convinced of NOAC superiority. Research pharmacologists at the University of British Columbia have written important critiques in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews on both factor Xa and direct thrombin inhibitors vs vitamin K antagonists for the prevention of stroke in AF.[9,10] They point to numerous limitations and bias in the trials. For instance, one of their concerns is the claim that apixaban provides a mortality benefit over warfarin. In ARISTOTLE, apixaban reduced the rate of all-cause death compared with warfarin by a statistically significant 0.42%. The problem was that the number of patients with missing data on vital statistics was 2.1%—fivefold greater than the absolute benefit. Enthusiasm makes it easier to skip over this sort of nuance.

Another issue these pharmacologists and others[11,12] point to is the possibility of research misconduct in the industry-sponsored NOAC trials. Boehringer Ingelheim paid $650 million to settle state and federal lawsuits alleging that the company knew of the internal bleeding risks of dabigatran, concealed internal studies rather than warn patients, and even destroyed evidence requested by the court.

More recent news concerning faulty international normalized ratio (INR) devices used in the pivotal ROCKET-AF (rivaroxaban) trial add to concerns of study misconduct. In a detailed report, Deborah Cohen, associate editor of the BMJ, culled evidence that led her and other experts to question the results of the ROCKET-AF trial until independent analysis is done.[13] ROCKET-AF investigators countered with two analyses published in the New England Journal of Medicine that upheld the main results of ROCKET-AF.[14,15]

The ARISTOTLE (apixaban) trial also had irregularities. An analysis of publicly available documents describe FDA inspections of clinical sites in which significant evidence of objectionable practices reported seven official-action-indicated (OAI) events for the ARISTOTLE trial.[16] OAI events represent the most severe classification of FDA inspections. In this case, events included falsification of data and inaccurate adverse event reporting. One study site in China altered patient records and if data from that site were removed, the mortality benefit in the overall trial was no longer statistically significant.

Final Judgment
My (probabilistic) guess is that time will prove our embrace of the new anticoagulants was the right call. It’s a good bet, but it’s not a sure bet. Many clinicians were quite sure that treating depression in adolescents with paroxetine or high-dose imipramine was beneficial. That was until independent researchers reanalyzed the famous Study 329 and found no evidence of efficacy of the drugs and an increase in harm.[17]

Unlikely is such a major reversal with the NOAC drugs. Being wrong, however, would be costly. Millions of people take these drugs.”

It clearly stinks.
We should not forget that the FDA approved NOACS on the grounds of non-inferiority.
Big Pharma came up with the NOACS simply because Warfarin has been in use since 1954 and obviously there isn’t much money to be gained from a medicine that is that old as a generic version can be prescribed.
Billions are made with the NOACS now.
And yes, many studies/reviews now hype the NOACS, but well, haven’t we seen the same with statins, how easily these hypes can be created by Big Pharma?

I keep remembering what one doctor said: Better make use of the devil we know (warfarin) than the devil we don’t know (NOACS).
Don’t forget, when you get a hemorrhagic stroke, even if they occur less in NOACS than in Warfarin (if that is even true and not manipulated) – with Warfarin you at least have a chance to reverse the bleeding, for NOACS there are no antidotes.
I think for the time being, Warfarin is safer if you have no problem with staying in the therapeutical range (INR).

Gay,
I suggest you try to avoid making profound decisions based on advice that mirrors what you WANT to believe, or that mirrors what you most FEAR.
Go clear-eyed and open-minded to the research. Judge for yourself.
One little example:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5680948/

Leon,
The Xa NOACS work on the intrinsic pathway, addressing the blood chemistry changes and atrial substrate changes that happen in AF. Clotting, when you cut your finger, occurs through the extrinsic pathway – “tissue factor” being the initiator. It’s different.
(Are you prepared to take personal responsibility for the rather specific advice you’re giving? Dr. Kendrick doesn’t do it.)

“The Xa NOACS work on the intrinsic pathway, addressing the blood chemistry changes and atrial substrate changes that happen in AF. Clotting, when you cut your finger, occurs through the extrinsic pathway – “tissue factor” being the initiator. It’s different.”

That’s simply not true. I showed it already by giving a link from a Canadian Hospital site that instructs people what to do if they cut themselves while on blood thinners, *including* Xa NOACS.

“Are you prepared to take personal responsibility for the rather specific advice you’re giving? Dr. Kendrick doesn’t do it.”

Nope. Everybody should take responsibility for his own choices.
First there is the responsibility of the prescribing doctor, but I think many if not most doctors take that responsibility rather lightly, and secondly, the person who takes the medication should inform himself as best as he can and consequently make a choice.

I am just arguing that there are many things that don’t feel right about NOACS, especially the absence of antidotes to stop major, life-threatening bleeding and the absence/not use of tests to check the blood thinning effect, as is done with Warfarin use.

If I had Afib, and if I could maintain a good INR while being on Warfarin, for those reasons I definitely would prefer Warfarin.

But as I said, everybody must make his own choices.
And certainly, I know, nowadays most doctors prescribe NOACs because supposedly (partly based on fraudulent research) they work better, but well, don’t they prescribe statins, too?

I may put together something on this. Most of what I hear that is concerning is in regard to the conduct of the trials. The data are difficult to get hold of. Here is a study concern in the BMJ. There are many more. http://www.bmj.com/content/354/bmj.i5131

Dr. Kendrick,
Looking forward to what you put together.
You’ve suggested earlier that inhibiting clotting could well put off that final MI, so it would seem that the anti-platelets and the anti-coagulants would be helpful. Now, your concerns become my concerns.
Thank you for this first step.

You wrote: “dairy is acid forming within the body and this leads to calcium being robbed from the bones to counterbalance the Ph level. I am pretty sure that the highest dairy consuming countries have the highest incidence of bone fagility”

I wonder how this could be the case, as in the phase that growth of bones happens the fastest, in the youngest humans and mammals, they are living of milk only. How could it be that when they have grown up and their bones no longer grow, the process is reversed and milk will rob them from their calcium?

We are designed to grow that fast at that age, spurned on towards the important reproduction phase, it will take more than a little cows milk to mess this up at that stage of life. Having said that I did not give my son cows milk once he could eat solids

Why didn’t you give your son cows milk once he could eat solids? The only thing wrong with cows milk comes once it’s pasteurized. I commented yesterday but most of my postings didn’t come through for some reason, but raw cows milk or goats milk is one of the best things you can feed growing kids. Babies (infants) do very well on raw goat milk because it’s self-homogenized and much easier for babies to digest than other choices, unless of course Mom is breastfeeding. There are a lot of weird ideas floating around out there about milk because the guv’t agencies want you to believe everything they say is true, but they tell you lies. They seem to know the price of everything and the value of nothing. That is particularly true with foods because food is supposed to be viewed only as something to fill the tummy, not something that’s actually useful for health.

Milk is not necessarily milk….
Pasteurising (denaturing). Homogenising – non particulate fat globules? Do these get where they should not as a result of their size? (Compromising the gut). Or skimmed of all useful fats under guise of health. (This used to be thrown away except it made the countryside stink, for city folk who started to take country excursions, so they fed it to the pigs. Cows full of growth hormone. Cows antibiotic-ally compromised. Cows fed on GMO or other (crap for cow diet). Cows often kept in conditions that don’t allow the nature of the spirit of the cow to be lived.
Dairy can mean a lot of things.
I have read – (it may not be true) the the enzymes for digesting milk are lost in pasteurisation.
I have read that when we no longer have (or can make) the enzymes to digest certain foods, we suffer allergic or immune-response issues. All any biotic vectors play a part in the undermining of the gut – including ignorance of the need and value of the biota of living food.

I don’t have an opinion as to whether anyone else should or shouldn’t eat dairy or anything else, but rather seek to share in regaining an understanding of the true nature of health freedom that we have effectively lost, under a medical tyranny operating from official opinions, informed or otherwise as to what we ‘should’ eat. (Of course it can get a lot worse than it currently is). The warnings against the ‘wolf’ (dangers) are now more often than not the ruse of the ‘wolf’ pointing at anything that would support our consciousness of discerning the nature of such a predicament – and therefore changing it. (Scare and smear propaganda).

But most use their freedom to invoke rules that save them from freedom, (along with all that is requires to regulate, apply and enforce them. So in collective terms, toxic slow death under tyranny is an expression of freedom from having to know, stand in and live from one’s own decision. We outsource power, freedom and knowing to those who want to use it for their own agenda. Such corporate interests seek their own profit while outsourcing the pain or pollution or collateral damage to the ‘powerless’.
I believe that taking in or adding to ourself will not in itself restore health. We have to give or live from what we receive to truly have it. So ‘new wine’ into old limitations is trying to short change ourself of the transformation that comes from awakened commitment. Why ‘awakened’? Because one can increase commitment to a false model to insane degrees without actually releasing or undoing the underlying causes of the health or life issue. (IE: ‘WAR on ). The danger of the false flagged enemy ought to be very keenly used to maintain vigilance against deceit – which is usually a process of reaction, not of reason in the heart. A wrong turning (until learned from) operates not only a destructive outcome, but the loss of the experience of the sharing in the Good.

Based on limited numbers of users and cases, this cohort study suggests that supplementation of antioxidant vitamins might possibly reduce cancer and all-cause mortality. The significantly increased risks of cancer and all-cause mortality among baseline non-users who started taking supplements during follow-up may suggest a “sick-user effect,” which researchers should be cautious of in future observational studies.
—-

2. Add Vitamin K2
This moves calcium out of the arteries into the bones
I have seen dramatic improvements in arterial flexibility after taking 2 capsules a day of the “Super K” from LifeExtension – each capsule gives 2000 micrograms a day !
Read the book: Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox, by Kate Rheaume-bleue

3. Add Omega-3
I take 2 grams a day of Norsan Omega-3 Total natural fish oil
I have no Inflammation and my joints are all very flexible
EFSA ( European Food Safety Agency ) allows up to 5 grams a day of Omega-3
You can see the health claims which EFSA allow if you check any of the Omega-3 products at: http://www.greenvits.eu/collections/omega-3
Read more about Omega-3 at:
* http://www.expertomega3.com …..check the “Studies”
* http://www.greenvits.eu …..read the blog for “Sources of Information about Omega-3”

5. Add Vitamin C
I take 5 grams of Vitamin C, in 1 gram capsules spread over the day, plus L-Lysine
If I am ill or stressed in any way I take up to 20 grams a day
Read why in the eye-opening book: “Vitamin C – The Real Story” by Steve Hickey & Andrew Saul

I also take a mineral multi-vitamin and a B-complex, plus additional supplements, as described in the book TRANSCEND by Dr Terry Grossman & Ray Kurzweil. These Include L-Arginine & L-Citrulline, Magnesium, Zinc, Selenium, Iodine, Astaxanthin, Resveratrol, Curcumin, N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine, plus DIM and D-Aspartic Acid to reduce my Estrogen

None of the above would be recommended by http://www.nice.org.uk ( the UK medicines and health advisory agency ) as they do not recognise any of these products as medicines and consider them as food. I have been a Registered Stakeholder with them for over 3 years and they cannot cope with “Diet and Lifestyle”

barovsky
Perhaps you are already gone.
In your thought, a post about magnesium, created a monster. (?)
Your reaction gives witness to the power of thought.
But you can always change your mind -about your thinking or it would not BE mind.
In this lies all hope to find release from false thinking.
Tuning to the signal and neglecting the noise is the discernment that ‘vanquishes’ the ‘monster’ without conflicting with negatively assigned charge.

After reading the two supplement blogs and readers comments I’m going to streamline my supplement intake – narrow it down to the ones that seem most important or beneficial for heart health. At the moment I’m looking at Co Q10, turmeric, vitamins C, D3 and K2 and a vitamin B combo, magnesium, daily fresh garlic and frequent oily fish meals as the way to go …

Managed to find the brand of oats my partner had bought and found that it contained 10g of sugar per 100g whereas my usual brand is 1g. Tested today using oats and water and my 1g brand. Was very optimistic of seeing the previous 101 reading come down a fair bit but alas came in today at 116 which is very confusing. It looks like an oats breakfast and a 1 hour post meal reading of less than 100 is not going to happen for me. In 7 to 10 days I will resume and try eggs,onions,mushrooms and tomato breakfast. I would expect this to come in low.
Has anyone else conducted similar food tests, some of you must have home glucose monitors. I would be curious to know how things react for you.

Excellent Charles, the whole purpose of my food testing is not to suggest that what happens to me will happen to all but to maybe prompt others to self test. When a guy spends his weekends under the hood of his car he is said to have a useful hobby or past time but when he spends his time looking under the hood of his own body he is often labeled as crazy, as someone said on here, or perhaps obsessional. I agree with neither

I have been told I am seriously fanatical.
My response is that I have only one life to live; I want to live it the best i can by starting with my body (now that I have discovered not to abdicate my health to the mantra: eat less/ move more/ take meds/ have surgery). followed by my belief systems. then what i do for others etc. etc.
BUT none of the rest is possible if my body is always failing/ breaking down.

There is magnesium in the Life Extension multi vit that I use and I eat dark choc and nibble on pumpkin seeds but I have not tried to take measurements or track any resulting effect of increasing Magnesium intake. I suspect it is very important however, I remember an interview between two doctors and one of them mentioned that at his institute magnesium and fiber were the two most impactful variables on heart disease

There MAY be a few things that we can do now to reduce our chance of developing Dementia or stop it happening

1. Changing your diet and lifestyle may help you avoid Alzheimer’s
2. There are ways to test for your risk of Alzheimer’s and to halt the progress

Professor David Smith (AD Smith) has been testing people for Dementia at Oxford University for over 30 years. Using MRI scans they have seen the early signs of brain shrinkage at least 20 years before the symptoms become visible to family and friends. Look for the OPTIMA project ( https://www.pharm.ox.ac.uk/team/a-david-smith )

They found that a blood test for high Homocysteine is a very good indicator that matches their MRI scans and clinical observations and other medical tests.

A charity, Food For The Brain ( http://www.foodforthebrain.org ), has developed an online test for people aged over 50 who suspect that they have mild Cognitive Impairment. So far, 250,000 people have taken the test and consistently 11% fail

If you fail the online test, you receive a letter for your doctor that suggests that they test for Homocysteine

Doctors know that they can reduce high Homocysteine with a cocktail of high strength vitamins and Omega-3 fish oil

I used to follow Patrick years ago when he had an email newsletter. I don’t remember why he quit sending that but I assumed he had retired from the health circuit. Good to hear he’s still out there swinging!

Mushrooms, Onions and tomatoes are all wonderfully beneficial. Eggs are another one of those divisive foods. I wont go into the pros and cons on here but I think the bottom line is probably that they are not drivers of heart disease but at the same time have some draw backs which if consumed moderately are not going to have to negative an impact. If this breakfast comes in low and I think it will then I would probably want some variation on the egg component, exactly what I do not know at this stage. For the last 4 years I have had porridge every morning but I think this may be about to change or at least get varied.

smartersig: My suggestion would be to get the highest quality eggs you can find. I pay US $9.00 per dozen. In the U.S. the Cornucopia Institute has an extensive list, by quality, of all domestic egg producers.

I generally do not eat eggs but I have noticed a big difference in eggs out here in Portugal to the UK, The yokes here are a deep yellow whereas in the UK they are a pasty yellow. What this means I am not sure. On the subject of water and Magnesium, I was walking in the southern Spain mountains yesterday and in a beautiful village deep in the sierras I bought a bottled water for 1 euro ans was pleased to see that it had 25.6 mg/L of magnesium and even quoted the calcium to magnesium ratio on it at 2.3. I will be reading these labels from now on

smartersig
now we buy our eggs from a farm, I notice a big difference in taste and colour, yolks deep yellow. If I might make a suggestion, look out in the UK for an organic supplier.
Also read Vernon Wheelock’s book on the health crisis, its available in a Kindle edition for a short period at 99 cents, can’t go wrong.

We had tasty eggs from a local farm with golden yolks and then at some point asked what they were fed on – and found out about the pigments noted in another post here. It MIGHT be that the colour is not manipulated in your case.

smartersig: The deep yellow color of the yolks of the Portuguese eggs is a very good sign. It means they have access to real food, for a chicken, such as insects and wild seeds and grasses. Good idea to read the labels of mineral water, not so much for food, at least in the U.S., where they are still obsessed with saturated fat. My mineral water has 100 mg/L Mg and 345 mg/L Ca, for a ratio of 3.45. What this means I have no idea.

Smart – ‘… I think the bottom line is probably that they [eggs] are not drivers of heart disease but at the same time have some draw backs which if consumed moderately are not going to have a negative impact.’

I could not agree more. You just need to delete ‘probably’ and ‘some draw backs’ and should have made it clear that moderation is a minimum of 2 a day. After researching eggs, my new year’s resolution at the start of 2016 was to aim for 2(+) eggs a day – by and large I’ve kept this up ever since (had 5 yesterday and 3 today) (principally hens eggs but duck eggs if I make it to the local market on Thursdays). [Side bar – we have an annual health screening through work and my cholesterol, not that I’m bothered about cholesterol numbers, have changed diddly squat within the tolerance of the tests.]

I tried posting this before and didn’t see it here, so I’ll try it again. Some chickens from factory farms are fed marigolds in order for the eggs to have very bright yellow/orange yolks. Unless you know your supplier, you really have no idea what you’re buying.

Marigolds (pesticide free) are fine.You can eat marigolds and thrive. I posted a link on here somewhere to pigments used to add ‘colour’ to egg yolk via feed. The thing about selling, is that making a good impression increases sales. I don’t know if there are hazards from such additions. There are other things chickens can be fed that may transmit to egg eaters. No we don’t know what is being done in the food chain, but the more we moved from farming to corporate systems of mass production, processing and distribution, the more everything is biased to quantitative profits, generally with disregard for human health – excepting risk of penalty or litigation as a result.
The body is generally very resilient and I feel this is part and parcel of a strong sense of being in our life and not a result of manual over-managing of life as a system of rules to which obeisance must be made or it will break down. We are becoming frightened disproportionate to the risks in my opinion, and it suits those who act with callous disregard for others to have all sorts of diversionary fears running while they feed off destruction almost un noticed.

Well people will say whatever they will say, but I find we learn by teaching (demonstration) and teach by learning (genuine active attention). When we don’t pay attention, we run off with the wrong end of the stick and use it as a basis from which to live/work/think.
I open an integrative sense of clarity as a result of un-learning much that I once held true. I see such a process of unlearning as inevitable to the times we now live in. So asking ‘what’s really going on, then?” needs us to become more aware of the cultural predicates that underlie and frame ‘answers’ into assertions seeking reinforcement. In fact that is exactly what ‘narrative control is and does’. It seeks to set the terms in which we think.

Grown for market, conditioned, medicated and manipulatively managed to normalise factory farmed thinking. I can apply this intra personally as well as in terms of the world. So I don’t leap to blaming.

I didn’t mean to imply that marigolds would do anyone harm, I just meant to make people aware that just because an egg yolk is bright yellow/orange doesn’t mean it came from a pastured chicken and/or that these companies should be able to get away with what is basically false advertising by making people believe they are getting something that they are likely paying more money for.

You should know that you can’t simply massively increase your vitamin D intake as vitamin D, K, A, calcium and magnesium influence each other.
You should assess your food (+supplement) intake and make sure nutrients are in balance with regard to each other.

liz3321: Thank you very much for the links. I remember Stephanie Seneff, in one of her lectures, talking about ONOO (pronounced “Oh no!”) and how terrible it is. Now I understand why. Glad I’m taking D3 this winter.

Was it the year-long bout of diarrhea I had (brought on by too much ibuprofen) that was the cause of my AF and/or my extremely high CAC score?
Or maybe it was the five days of Tazobactam following a nasty appendectomy??

The more researchers come to know, the more apparent is the vast array of the unknown!

Perhaps firstly to recognize that so much we ingest or are exposed to is anti-biotic. Growing awareness and alignment in bios by releasing or weaning from trying to enslave it. Then grow awareness in foods and immersions that are alive. I feel that natural ferments are worthy. Some commercial ferments are sulphated to kill off further growth. I understand the distributors issue – but I want living food where possible. So milk to me means raw milk. Pesticides such as glyphosate are also antibiotic. Heavy metals and other toxins undermine the gut. The gut lining is a membrane between what belongs outside you and what is appropriate to enter. Trojan foods and exposures undo defences from within to initiate a different mode of compromised survival under conditions of lack and toxicity – including lack of ability to clear up our own detritus and the ability to digest what used to be a source of nutrition – with double consequence.

I read that the appendix holds a store of biota that is released into the gut after extreme diarrhoea. I don’t know if this also applies after say – a coffee enema?

JDPatten: The appendix is a repository for intestinal flora; as far as I know that is its function, and thus can repopulate the colon after antibiotics or other things which damage these critters. Without it, you may need probiotics to re-seed your gut.

Right. There are all sorts of ideas circulating around this issue (No puns intended!).
The commensal bacteria I inherited from my mother – and hers – constituted a unique ecosystem with distinctive membership. Once a member(s) has been extinguished through systemic antibiotic treatment, those members are extinct for all intents and purposes. Replacement with similar bugs is a temporary proposition that requires constant renewal. Similar is not quite good enough to repopulate.
So I’ve been given to understand.

Another idea holds that it’s useless to mess with probiotics. Use PREbiotics that favor the good guys and disadvantage the bad guys.
What’s missing in all this is the idea of the very individual nature of any one person’s gut.
What specifically targeted steps can be taken now? Little steps at best.

I suspect that future parents will have their baby’s intact personal “ecologies” frozen and saved for future contingency.

“For example, it has only recently been discovered that that vitamin D has potent anti-cancer effects, and may reduce the risk of CVD. What level of vitamin D is needed to provide these benefits. Almost certainly a much higher level than that required to prevent rickets. Has this level ever been established…no. What about the risk of developing thin bones in old age? No.”

Monthly high-dose vitamin D supplementation does not prevent CVD. This result does not support the use of monthly vitamin D supplementation for this purpose. The effects of daily or weekly dosing require further study.

High-dose bolus vitamin D supplementation of 100 000 IU colecalciferol monthly over 2·5-4·2 years did not prevent falls or fractures in this healthy, ambulatory, adult population. Further research is needed to ascertain the effects of daily vitamin D dosing, with or without calcium.

Levels required may of course be greater when under stress/illness. (As with Vit C). A goat may produce up to 70gm per day when dealing with illness.

We just watched and appreciated watching. Margreet Vissers PhD: Best presentation on biological science of vitamin C (1st one). Margreet, a professor in New Zealand, has two excellent and unique videos. The first one is exceptional material from an electron microscope showing vitamin C in action. Really interesting and definitive proof of the effectiveness of vitamin C. New Zealand seems to be far enough away from the centers of drug company power that she can do academic-sponsored research on vitamin C and not get squashed by the pharmocracy. If she keeps up this good research, the drug companies may be forced to put research centers or pill plants in New Zealand so they can have enough economic might to dry up her funds. Her major sponsor seems to be the Kiwi fruit promotion board. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPyj9Pi8nw4&t — Interesting electron microscope material.

No, nothing bogus, JDPatten: If you had read the link I included, you would have found that it is NOT a meta-analyses.
Moreover, the researchers concluded:
“Further research is needed to ascertain the effects of daily vitamin D dosing, with or without calcium.” (contrary to one big dose every month or so).

But, I am not very hopeful: Bone health depends on many factors (vitamins, minerals), exercise, and the absence of factors (eg some medicines are detrimental to bone health).
If you single out one factor, maybe you will see a (very) slight improvent, but not a big effect. Only if you take care of all the factors involved, you may see a much bigger effect.

I suggest everyone do a close read of Dr. DiNicolantonio’s Open Heart paper, “Subcliniocal magnesium deficiency: a principal driver of cardiovascular disease and a public health crisis,“ particularly p. 5. Beginning on p. 4, “‘Although magnesium intakes have been gradually falling since the beginning of the century, there were sharply increased intakes of nutrients that increased its requirements [particularly high vitamin D and phosphorous intakes]. . .’” The phosphorous comes mainly from soda pop and processed foods, especially meat. Relatively easy to avoid or curtail. What concerns me is the advocacy here for very high vitamin D supplementation. He goes on to talk about how increased calcium intake “also increases magnesium requirements and may worsen or precipitate magnesium deficiency.” I’ve cut back on cheese (2 oz/day rather than 4), and increased the pumpkin seeds. On p. 5, “Some have argued that the optimal dietary calcium:magnesium ratio is close to 2:1.” Cheddar cheese has a ratio of ~26, and pumpkin seeds 0.21. Over the 20th century the dietary calcium:magnesium ratio has increased from about 2.1 to 5.1, because of “the most dramatic change. . .[of] a reduction in magnesium intake.”

Cheers Gary, this calcium/magnesium ratio is a new one on me but very interesting in light of changes over he last 100 years. I was very impressed by that bottle of water I purchased that actually cited the calcium/mag ratio

smartersig: Yes, and this paper answered the question about the optimal calcium:magnesium ratio that I had been pondering since you made that post. He also talks about the phosphorous:magnesium ratio, which is out of whack for many, due mainly to soda pop, but phosphorous compounds are widely used in processed foods, so a Standard Name the country Diet is going to put this out of whack, too. Another interesting thing he says is that Aluminum interferes with Magnesium absorption. We all carry an aluminum burden, and it is very interesting how much better I feel since I finished the protocol for reducing it. Subtle things. I recover easier and faster from my strenuous workout. I now sleep segmented every night; that is, I have my six straight, followed by two or three hours of activity, followed by another hour or so. Both times I wake up refreshed. I recommend everyone do the protocol. Can’t hurt, and silica-rich water is cheap-cost me US $0.89 for the full treatment. First thing in the morning worked for me. But we all need to pay attention to getting more magnesium!

If you want to increase magnesium intake via water – look at the ‘bicarbonate water’ as I previously mentioned on this page. Called by many names. One can make it very simply. It completely resolved cramping ankles at night.

Leon,
Sorry to be unclear. By “here” I was suggesting you read the review of the many trials included in the meta-analysis in the link I provided. Did you look?
I think it’s a shame that many people will probably now give up supplementing D, thinking it’s useless because of a meta of flawed analyses.

@ Gary: I have tried at least 3 times now to get a message to you (or SOMEONE WHO CAN ANSWER ME) since the losartan is also a potassium sensitive drug, does this also include food sources of potassium?? I eat lots of things that have goodly amounts of potassium in them – pistachios, avocados, black walnuts, bananas – so do I have to avoid those foods simply because my doc wants me to take one of these high BP drugs??

I have discovered (finally) that the first time I try to post here, by the time I get signed in with wordpress, which takes me to a different page, then I lose the post entirely. It’s been very frustrating trying to figure out what was happening.

Also, some of my incoming messages are being shuttled off to my junk folder and if I try to “reply” through those messages, it also doesn’t work. I think the geniuses who crafted these web sites (like wordpress for instance) need to go back to the drawing board. It’s also frustrating that I have to scroll up and up and up to find a place to hit “reply”. There might be a dozen other messages under that same post which have nothing to do with it, but it’s the only way to reply. Arrrrrrgggggh. Hope this message makes it through because I would really like an answer about the food thing.

Losartan has an effect on the kidneys that is called ‘potassium sparing’ . This is independent of food and can mean that your blood potassium goes up. Other drugs in the same class (angiotensin II inhibitors) do the same thing. Irbestartan, candesartan – anything ending in ‘sartan’. As do the ACE-inhibitors, ramipril, captopril, enalapril etc. Anything ending in ‘pril.’

Hi Sundancer, I had so much frustration posting from WordPress that I gave up and us twitter.
If you type out in a text program, and paste it, you wont lose it to a glitch. Or learn to ALWAYS select all and copy to clipboard before clicking post.
Adding the sender’s address to your contacts MIGHT stop misdirection to Junk.
Frustration can be practice for living rather than a sense of being deprived of life. really.
I wonder if content blocking in browsers and browser extensions may play a role in failure to post.

As for your question. I haven’t your answer except to listen to your ‘body’ as an ongoing willingness, commitment, appreciation, honesty etc. (Rather than the head). This is of course noticing energetically what is moving. Not knowing is the beginning of wisdom.

What we eat doesn’t necessarily mean what er access or make use of. There are many co dependencies or blocking factors. Often when something is latched onto by the head as the answer, it becomes a problem. Perhaps because when we think we have the answer, we stop listening to the ‘body’ (feeling life).

sundancer55: My GP always encouraged me to eat lots of potassium-rich foods when I was taking the potassium-sparing BP drugs (lisinopril and other -prils). In fact she once gave me a list of low-sodium/high potassium foods (mostly vegetables and legumes). She expressly stated to avoid potassium supplements. So my advice is to continue to eat all those wonderful potassium-rich foods regardless of any drugs you agree to take. I am convinced that taking a potassium supplement is a good idea (because modern foods have a reduced amount), and taking drugs usually a bad idea, although sometimes necessary, life-saving even. Taking both potassium-sparing drugs and a potassium supplement is probably not a good idea. Lowering BP with drugs has an upside and a downside. I would rather address root causes, which I think are two-fold: 1. Learn how to avoid the strain which can result from stress, and 2. Pay attention to dietary mineral balances (especially sufficient Mg). The kidneys are a marvelous organ which keeps minerals in balance, but best to keep the dietary mineral intake as close to optimal as possible. Thus the importance of the DiNicolantonio paper (for a fairly comprehensive look at all BP drugs, read chapter 4 of “Malignant Medical Myths, ” by Joel M. Kauffman, PhD.). Both the -pril and -artan drugs alter kidney function, which I personally don’t think is a good idea long-term (at the last checkup she termed my kidney function “excellent,” without drugs and with the 1.4g/day potassium bicarbonate supplement, and plenty of dietary salt and magnesium).

As long as you are not overdoing it, like eating 10 bananas a day, it should be no problem. The patient leaflet of Losartan warns against taking potassium supplements.
Your doctor should measure potassium and other electrolytes in your blood, within 2-3 weeks after starting Losartan and regularly thereafter. Your kidney function should also be regularly monitored with blood tests, at least once a year.

If you are 55 or older, Losartan -in -general- should not be first choice medication, see:

Chris
We just watched her other one; ‘overview on C’ she is fine at 1.25 speed we find. I nearly gave up because of repetition but then there was new to me information that I wont try to repeat that gives (me) plenty of other reasons than the already known to want to keep my VitC levels high.
I like that she is engaged in vivo in some of this work – and the time lapse photos of Vit C at work compared with Vit C deficcient (not working).
She isn’t the most charismatic speaker, but she honours those who do the work and is clearly a team player – and persisting despite difficulties that I felt were mostly unstated but not unfaced.

3 mins – genetics is a small contribution in the mechanism of disease. Diet (fruit and veg) and lifestyle has a bigger impact on things like strokes, CVD and T2D. Fruit and veg has a good impact on markers such as triglycerides.
10 mins – vitamins and minerals and supplements (vit E and A may be harmful)
14 mins – vit C presentation starts
29 mins – vit C destroyed by oxygen and cooking.
32 mins – hospital patients: under stressful conditions like this, the body uses more vitamin C therefore need to increase intake
33 mins – supplementation is associated with improved outcome for sick patients
51 – one slide summary of presentation. Thanks heavens – the talk was very technical in places.

Obviously there’s much more and other readers may find parts of the talk of interest to them as opposed to my selection.

When I modified my diet nearly 5 years ago my LDL cholesterol dropped from 3.9 to 3.0 mmol, why do you think that happened. What was going on within my body to cause such a drop and was my body happy with the modification ?.

Any information about products that offer dosages of arginine, carnitine and citrulline similar to Malcolm’s combi pill? Most that I can find are much higher dosages.
And any multi vit mineral that provides close to his list?

L-Arginine & L-Citrulline
——————————–
I take 3 grams per day of L-Arginine and 750 mg of L-Citrulline
There seems to be a synergy between them
I buy 1 gram capsules of L-Arginine in bulk from: http://www.justvitamins.co.uk
I buy L-Citrulline in the UK, made in the USA by: http://www.nowfoods.com

Thanks Rufus. I will explore further. I don’t want to get too obsessed with this! Wellman’s multivits have Q10, l-arginine and l-carnitine but not potassium, l-citrulline, K2 or omega 3, althugh the B12 is the less efficient type.
Naturelo whole food multivits don’t have l-arginine, l-carnitine or l-citrulline but they do have potassium and K2 in natural forms whatever that means.
I should say I dn’t have any diagnosed heart problems or symptons but there is family history and i am interested in prevention.

John,
I myself use Supradyn Complex Energy (not the forte version) as it has 100% of most vitamins and most minerals. I think that is a good start. Do note that there is 100% RDA of iron in this multivitamin which is not good for persons (especially males) who already consume a lot of food rich in iron and/or have high blood iron/ferritin levels.

Centrum vitamins are generally also good to start with.

You could add for example: vitamin c, about 2 times a day 200-250 mg. Vitamin D 1000 IU a day or higher if needed, Vitamin K2 up to 180 mg (but talk with our doctor first if on Warfarin), and potassium citrate capsules 200 mg 4 times a day (or two times a day capsules of 200 mg).

Of course you can add much more but personally I don’t believe in having to take boxes full of pills every day.

In Dutch we have a website where you can analyse your food, those websites undoubtedly exist in the English language, too. It’s always good to give in your food for a few days and analyse it, so you can see how much of vitamins and minerals you get with your food alone already and if you have important deficiencies.

Of course in certain circumstances and with certain medications, you might need more of some vitamins and minerals.

For Arginine and Citrulline to work, you really need the high doses I am afraid, and I would not recommend them: I have seen anti-cancer trials that use diets that intendedly exclude arginine and citrulline to try and “starve” the cancer as it feeds on these amino-acids.
This could -theoretically- mean that by using high doses of these substances, you might be at higer risk for some types of cancer. But I must admit, no-one can say anything for sure as the research data simply isn’t there.

The idea we hold or assign to cancer makes all the difference as to how we then relate to it. Many treatments reduce or toxify the cellular function because cancer in many forms operates as a life process (growth) as the idea that ‘cancer is a tumour’, either as a physical blockage that eventually impairs function, or as a diversion of nutrients and resources to a ‘cancer process’ that literally starves the body to feed the disease state.
Nothing can induce confusion more than setting off with the wrong map, or with a ‘consensus’ that the map should be upside down.
I see the patterning of these issues as applying all the way down to the core of felt relationship with life. One of the functions of disease crises is to release what doesn’t serve us, rather than defend it to the death. So it may be wise not to manually switch our metabolic function on full, if we are still using life energy to more successfully block life energy. If that sounds like nonsense, it is – but presented as the idea of controlling life, it has a widespread appeal.
Timing is everything (I find myself typing). Successful disintegration of tumours can itself be a cause of toxicity that without due diligence, kills us. It may be that many cancers are not nearly as life- threatening as the (standard) treatment (of care) – which starts with a nocebo of a ‘death sentence’ that has been protected and maintained since cancers became widespread.
The idea we hold or assign to anything makes all the difference as to how we then relate to it. Those who have most influence over ‘narrative control’ use fear as fuel to gain attention and allegiance to their idea of ‘protection’. But are ‘they’ protecting us, or the model that gives them prestige, influence, and power to maintain huge budgets – such that the growth of a ‘negative Economy’ sucks out all the wealth and health from the whole – because a set of encapsulated ideas are ‘too big to fail’.

No one should ever use Centrum or One-A-Day or any of the crappy “drugstore” supplements. Everything in them is totally synthetic and the body knows not what to do with synthetic stuff. Personally, I do not believe in taking multi-vitamins because most of them are overkill and talk about expensive urine! Of course, the doctors who are telling you to take these things are in cahoots with the companies who make and sell them, and yet if you mention to your doctor that you take a vitamin D3 they will immediately and forthwith tell you that you will derive nothing from taking them except expensive urine. They certainly have their wagons in a circle in confusing people on this issue.

But to repeat, no – – – no one should be taking Centrum or other cheap drugstore vitamins. Can I get a rah rah on that?

sundancer55: I agree. I trust the Health Ranger Store. I get my potassium bicarbonate from Prescribed for Life. But even in the health food store, most supplements give no indication of the source of the ingredients, most likely China. So I aim to get nearly everything from high-quality food and sunshine.

Sometimes the spread of geo engineering trails haze hang across the otherwise blue skies (SE England) But other times clear. Whatever ‘geoengineering’ is supposed to be for, it employs unimaginably large resources while evading any official acknowledgement or question and would not be believable if I didn’t see it. Planetary sunscreen, nanoparticular vaccines, ionospheric manipulations, population control, prepping Earth for another species? Fake science that can be used as a cover for actual manipulations (weather events) to unlock vast budgets and transfer of wealth and power for a fake save the world mind-control. In that sense I don’t have a lot of optimism as to outcomes arising from human folly unless we wake in time to choose differently.- which is always one at a time and in our own timing, rather than ‘consensual coercion’.

Perhaps deteriorating conditions oblige us to do more with less and appreciate what we have rather than what we seem to have lost, been denied or deprived of.
Realigning in more conscious priorities puts everything back in its place. Many do this in their deathbeds.

I have a deep sense that healing is more than possible (for Earth as for us) but we have to want it more than our comfort zone – which is often defined by and against risk of change (fear of loss) while of course not stopping change at all, but simply holding a non negotiable position instead of cooperating with life. That may also be a definition of a heart ‘attack”.

That’s absolutelety not true. While what you say is true for vitamin e (the synthetic variant being less powerful), it is not true for other vitamins, e.g. vitamin c and the b vitamins.
As for the minerals, it depends on which form of the mineral is used.
Supradyn, the brand I use and comparable to Centrum maintains my iron (ferritin) levels in the healthy range.

Vitamin D is not enough in multivitamins and also not absorbed well if not taken with a fatty meal.

Of course one can always add individual vitamins and minerals, based on deficiencies or medications that “use up” vitamins or minerals.

This ‘known’ information doesn’t seem to have any effect on the recent PR campaign to fortify bread with folic acid (™?) for all pregnant mothers who don’t take heed of official information in ensuring adequate levels – or tickboxes checked?.

*
“The active form of vitamin B9 is a folate known as levomefolic acid or 5-methyltetrahydrofolate (5-MTHF)”.

Diet modification and your drop in LDL – was it coincidence or have you had any further lipid tests to see if your LDL has remained at about the 3.0 mmol level since 5 years ago?

Have you had or considered getting your lp(a) measured at the same time as your cholesterol? I understand both substances are produced by the body in response to arterial damage. Might be interesting to see if their levels rise and fall together as you go about your self testing/diet modifications. Perhaps your vit C supplementation was strengthening your arterial cells thus causing the drop?

You tracked your lp(a) levels through vit C supplementation – could this have had effect on your LDL?

Thanks to everyone who posted an answer to my foods/potassium question. I appreciate it very much. @ Gary, I have to agree with you about the long-term use of Rx blood pressure drugs, but I don’t know what’s causing my pressures to be high which is the problem. Seems to have started about a year ago and just keeps slowly going higher. I think it’s an age thing but I do not want to take Rx drugs for the rest of my life for this condition. I’m searching for other alternatives at this point (homeopathic, etc.) and I’ve only been taking the losartan (25 mg twice daily because my body totally over-reacts to drugs and I get weird side-effects at high doses) for about 8 days and I’ve already noticed a distinct not-nice odor has developed in my urine. What in the world? I sure don’t want to have decent blood pressure numbers and then end up suffering with kidney or bladder issues/diseases, that’s for sure. The odor has to be coming from the pill because I have not changed anything else yet, other than that I was avoiding the potassium foods because I didn’t know about the safety of eating them and my doc is on vacation so I couldn’t ask. I should have called the pharmacist, I guess. Nevertheless, I’m not due for another check up until July but I may have to let doctor know about urine odor (sorry to be so frank but I don’t know any other way to tell you what’s happening). I’m pretty sure the idea of getting something worse from the pills will make my BP continue to rise!!

As an aside, I thought some of you might get a real charge out of watching this vid:

Leon,
Thanks for the interesting link. I didn’t dig down past the abstract. For myself and others with the same question, could you list the type of glucosamine and the dosage used in the study?
Phil
Renfrew, PA USA

In the study they used 3000 mg, unfortunately the type of glucosamine was not mentioned but very probably it was glucosamine sulphate.
It is a rather high dose – in Osteoarthritis usually 1500 mg is used.
Glucosamine seems to be very safe (in a study it already has been used for 3 years) but of course all depens on the dose.
I am not sure if I would use it myself. Though it seems really beneficial, it also seems to reduce colon and lung cancer.
But the use of glucosamine for arteriosclerosis is definitely still in an experimental state.
It is hard to say whether in this phase of research one should use it or not for arteriosclerosis.

One could take only 1500 mg. I think that is rather safe but will it do enough for arteriosclerosis at that dose?
With 3000 mg effect is more certain (though the results of this study must first be confirmed to be really sure that it works) but is it as safe as 1500 mg, especially long-term?

I think it depends on the seriousness of one’s condition.
Just for prevention, I think I myself would not go higher than 1500 mg and pray that that dose will work, too.
If I had moderate to severe arteriosclerosis, I think I would take a risk (if there is any) and take the 3000 mg.

If you are planning to take glucosamine, make sure you are not taking any medication that has an interaction with glucosamine.
Probably it is also best to first discuss it with your doctor if you have any condition.

Leon,
Thank you for your detailed and considerate reply.
I wonder how much more research on this not-patentable supplement will be done?
You suggested possible interaction with other supplements or prescription drugs. I’m sure that my doctor would know nothing about this.
I’ll try to get the full article.
Thanks again!
Phil
Renfrew, PA USA

I found another study that showed that glucosamine does not do anything for cardiovascular disease in men (contrary to women), at least not in the usual dose of 1500 mg, but it does reduce total mortality in men, about 10% which is not bad at all, of course. The reduced mortality is achieved by cancer reduction (lung cancer (not all types), and colon cancer), and a 41% reduction in respiratory disease.
Because in women it also preevents cardiovascular disease, in women it reduces total mortality with 25% – according to the study.

Maybe when using 3000 mg, it will also prevent/improve cardiovascular disease in men, but as I said, it’s quite a high dose.

As to interactions, amongst others, glucosamine has an interaction with Warfarin. At drugs.com you can check interactions. If not your doctor, I am sure your pharmacist can help you.

I think any research done on US dietary habits is so full of confounders as to be near irrelevant. With a figure of 20% they are using relative differences, which as we know are used for dramatic effect, not for the purpose of relating facts. See “Doctoring Data” by the little known Dr. M. Kendrick.

I look in vain for journalism in such media channels for corporate PR.
Instead a copy and paste churnalism along with reluctance to upset one of the main advertising sectors.
In part, economic factors drive the corporate nature of maximising profits by minimising costs – where the money supply and markets are basically rigged. Nothing real is affordable – excepting in industries where it HAS to work. IE a building has to stand. (However it does not seem to have to be designed with the safety of its occupants in mind relative to fire). This is exactly like when the body cannibalises its own resources as a result of lack of nutrients and minerals.

If and I emphasise IF some people ‘s use of some supplements has some ASSOCIATION with some forms of heart or other disease, then allow a simple comparison with iatrogenic misery, sickness and death – A daily, weekly, monthly, yearly fact that would spark outrage but for invested belief and identity in its protection. And of course in some cases, that protection is valid and needful at some level.

What is ‘stupid’ about supplements is that we used to have it and be it without knowing what we had, but now most of us have to supplement to thrive rather than survive as an ever diminishing capacity for life.

The MS joke comes to mind; How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb.
Answer: None, they declare darkness the new standard. Regardless the company reference, the fact is that almost anything can become ‘normalised’ no matter how unnatural – by the adjustment of the mind. But whatever is accepted true, defends itself from threat of change.

The pharmaceutical industry did not displace quackery, so much as buy the rights to use such accusation to regulate against others healing modalities. Modern ‘debates’ about the provision of health (sickness?) care hardly question the assumption that this is nearly all pharmaceutical in nature.

I would have bought Peter Gøtzsche’s latest book but his bias against vitamins at the outset (I read inside on Amazon) gave me a sense of cognitive dissonance. In the same way Dr David Healy seeks a pharmaceutical ‘answer’ (offering a substantial prize) to the seemingly permanent loss of sexual function to psychoactive Pharma drug use. Nutrition alone is not enough – except it may be enough to bring a clarity in place of a fog, such that more aligned choices in every area of our lives align the health to truly live them

Definitely worth trying.
Though I have confidence that vitamin and mineral supplements have the potential to reduce CVD and cancer risk, looking at existing research I have the impression that whole foods even have much more potential, probably due to a much broader spectrum of actions.

I had to look that up to find that you mean some people are allergic or have developed allergy to kiwis. So if you eat kiwis and enjoy, then eating more is a way to get significant Vit C in a natural foodsource. Buying organic also means I can simply eat the whole thing.

I noted that the recent link to lectures on Vit C that included time lapse photography, were research part funded by New Zealand Kiwi growers.

Allergy and auto-immune disease is itself a topic worthy of in depth research, as it may be directly associated with gut dysfunction, vaccinations and other toxic assaults on an already compromised functional immunity. (As a result of not aligning in health supporting foods, activities and exposures).

Dysfunctional thyroid impacts on heart health, in my recent research on water and magnesium levels I came across the detrimental effect of fluoride on Thyroid function. If you dont agree that fluoride is put in the water to make us all easier to manipulate as dozy citizens then you might be more convinced by the connection below with Thyroid function. Change your toothpaste too

We have an ongoing spat with the local authority who want to do Public Health England’s (PHE) bidding and add fluoride to the water supply. This, despite numerous letters highlighting the hazards of fluoride. The response from the portfolio holder for public health was “I am reassured the levels proposed for the water supply are safe”. We have pointed out information from the areas of Birmingham (West Midlands) and Manchester. The former has fluoride in the water, the latter doesn’t. The former has twice the reported cases of hypothroidism than the latter. So having fluoride in the water is safe, as long as you don’t have a thyroid. I now use sodium bicarbonate for cleaning teeth.

AH Notepad: I do, too. I mix it in a 7:1 ratio with salt. A drop of peppermint in the water is wonderful, too. I no longer use sea salt, since all the horror stories about ocean pollution. I use both Redmond Real Salt (mined in the U.S.) and Himalayan pink salt. The reason I use both is that the Real Salt has iodine, which the Himalayan doesn’t, while the Himalayan has minerals the Real Salt lacks.

Funnily enough it was a dentist’s admonition to use an extremely high dose fluoride toothpaste that had me online uncovering information that led then to uncovering all sorts of other malign manipulations – though of course many in the rank and file support and defend their particular version of slow motion genocide.
Institutional science is effectively captured such that when scientists (let alone the lay people) challenge the ‘consensus’, they do so in risk of their career, reputation and more. Whistleblowers also suffer.
Yes I use sodium bicarbonate for toothpaste also. The other notable is that most toothpaste includes a significant amount of sugar.

I have just now come across the Woo’s blog, or collection of rants, as she would probably call it.

From what I have seen, she is opinionated, but usually well informed. What struck me though is that she seems to be in a love hate relationship with Vitamin D. She takes it in winter for her mood but is convinced it makes her susceptible to recurring cold and flu infections. She even blamed a bacterial infection that got out of hand on her lowering her intake from 5000 IU to 4000 every other day.

Her reasoning is that ample Vitamin D boosts the innate immune system but dampens the adaptive immune system. So taking too much will make you susceptible to germs that you have encountered before (such as a cold virus that has evolved only ever so much since the last encounter) or that stay with you (such as herpes), while weaning yourself slightly will mean the innate system does not work properly for a while.

It gives a reference but I am not sure her interpretation is correct. Even if the effects are there, do they happen at her dose and can she really attribute her every symptom with a minute change in dose?

And, if she’s right, we should be overwhelmed with herpes sores and flus in the summer, which clearly isn’t the case.

What if she’s right?
– people with a transplant or an autoimmune disease would probably benefit from megadoses
– what about CVD??
– what about cancer?

In this post, there is a gem ” However, several studies show that sunscreen does not even seem to significantly block vitamin D production.”

Ok wait. We know the action spectrum for generation of Vitamin D in the skin. We know the absorption spectrum of sunscreen, and it happens to severely attenuate this very spectrum. Where are those several studies?

Eric and Bill in Oz, At long last I can propose a hypothesis (which may summarily be dismissed). Could the winter diseases be the result of sun generated vitamin D production in the summer, and there is a delay of a few months? Could being less prone to diseases in the summer be because vitamin D reserves are down in the winter, so again, after a delay the immune system is able to deal with diseases?

While his discoveries or findings were summarily dismissed by dictate of power and not reason, Dr Hamer posited that the activation of the sympathetic response (as a biological extension of psychic shock) is symptom suppressive in disease relating to specific embryonic antecedence of biological function, and only in the resolving of the issue (parasympathetic phase) would the symptoms of disease present.
Hamer’s system did not – as I see it – address toxicity and malnutrition so much as the ‘disease’ events arising from psychic-emotional shocks – which without understanding can be self-looping or expanding.
While his own practice was fundamentally the opening or arriving at such understanding rather than combatting disease, in being brought to prosecution, his patients over many years were investigated to find ANY that could be focussed on to assign death by negligence. Out of 5000 or so no hopers abandoned by the medical system his practice has something over 90% survival after 5 years. Of course Hamer could be deluded – along with his patients – in accidentally undermining the nocebo effect that fulfils its own diagnosis under authority.
But the principle of the suppression (in most cases) of symptom in conflict-active phase is simply known, but when the drama is released – all kinds of other facets of the body-mind have to realign or rebalance.
In modern thinking – if we can ennoble it thus – the idea is to deny and suppress symptoms as if they are the disease, and of course some symptoms are deadly and intervention is called for.
This corresponds with the evading of (responsibility for) psychic-emotional issues that Dr kendrick might assign under ‘strain’. Some of which is like the tip of the iceberg – and much of which is hidden but no less active in distorting our lives.
I don’t know if vit D is immunosuppressive via activation of the sympathetic response. I have read that echinacea is. When is it desirable to persist in action and defer a necessary rebalancing? Sometimes. But if this becomes a default, do we ‘pile up our troubles in hell’ to a sudden reckoning, when it all breaks loose?

Conflict aversion is conflict protected against healing.
But resolved conflicts allow otherwise repressed self (life) to rise to the light of an acceptance, recognition and gratitude. Industries (or identities) depending on conflict – like certain bacteria or fungal infections – work against such a change in environment. Sickness can also work the stick when the carrot failed to lure – and bring back to a sense of safety in the ‘devil we know’.

AH Notepad : D3 is definitely absorbed & stored after being manufactured in the skin when sunlight is present.

Your idea that perhaps vitamin d becomes depleted during Winter and this the immune system less effective then, looks ok to me. But it all does depend on the latitude where one lives. High latitudes in Winter have far less sunlight hours and far less intense sunlight. But at lower latitudes this is not the case.

Bill in Oz, I think you need to read my post again. I was suggesting not the simple “D in summer so we don’t get infections”, I was suggesting thar D in summer perhaps suppresses the immune system, but there is a delay before infections take hold. Also, in the winter with less sun, perhaps the immune system recovers, so by the summer it is able to fight infections more effectively. In effect a phase shift.
That you are able to take large amounts of vitamin D without getting infections might be confounded because you are probably taking large amounts of vitamin C as well.

Higher levels of Vitamin C also increase your immunity against infection
When you are fit, you may need only 100 mg per day
When you are stressed in any way, your body could use 1-10 grams a day
If you are seriously ill, say with cancer, then your body can use 100 grams a day
The half-life is only 1-2 hours, so you need to keep taking regular doses through the day
Read more in this eye-opening book: Vitamin C-The Real Story, by Steve Hickey & Andrew Saul

Rufus: Yesterday Mark’s Daily Apple posted a link to a paper showing that magnesium deficiency (estimated 80% of Americans) makes vitamin D worthless;, i.e., it requires Mg to be converted from the storage form to the active form. This may account for the negative or equivocal findings in some vitamin D studies. Pay attention to your Mg status folks!

Eric, I have been taking 10,000 IU of D3 for the past 4 years..Ever seen reading Jeff Bowles books on the subject. I have NOT noticed any increased infections happening …

I do not know the lady who writes this blog or her lifestyle or age or place which she lives…or her training or knowledge base or experience with D3.
And I do not have the time or energy to bring myself up to speed on all these things. So I suggest it’s asking a bit much to propose we do an examination of her whole bog….And work out whether she is wrong or not.

Information seems to expand exponentially.. Our times and energy don’t.

Bill, the first lady is an RN, mid-thirties and working her butt off in a hospital. After some perusal, I have to say many of her positions are spot on and bolstered by papers. On vitamin D, I suspect she may be onto something but going overboard as far as response to minute changes in dosage are concerned. I’ve also seen her go overboard on the effects of melatonin.

The second lady is a biologist with a PhD in infectious diseases and an active researcher. I find it harder to dismiss her point, even if there was a ridiculous quote about sunscreeen. On top, if you google, there actually are tons of paper on the immunosuppressive effects.

I do think it merits questioning mega-dose Vitamin D and high serum targets.

“I do think it merits questioning mega-dose Vitamin D and high serum targets”

Perhaps that is an intended outcome?

I am not cynical with regard to the mind of sickness and the industry to support it, so much as recognize manipulative deceit as its basis – such that a cynical sense of self and life is directed at the things that would serve a fuller expression of life and thus undermine the opportunity for the mind of sickness and its management to operate.

The psyop is the presentation of reality as a network of communications that work to manipulate an intended outcome, including the undermining of any focus in consciousness.

In an exponential flood of ‘information overload’ almost anything becomes plausible, which in some sense is good because a fixed mind learns nothing, and becoming un-fixed from a hidden tyranny of thought is a renaissance. On the other hand a misdirected crusade leads a false dawn, and every kind of belief becomes possible in reaction against a sense of outrage – such as discovering that trusted authorities, institutions and leaders are lying to us and that the closer we look into it the deeper goes the lie.

If I were the devil or any agency of disinformation against emerging truths that threatened my capacity to seem to exist, I would be very very interested in emerging truths – and even fund those that broke through my barriers, so as to become part of their unfolding, and mask within the new hope to the opportunity to sow doubt and division. But I can only work with the funding and support given me, and so the ‘enemy’ must be painted where a truth would arise, and un-winnable wars be waged unceasing. Too much inflammation?

My D3 blood level has been as high as 400 nmol in 2016. The GP just pointed it out on the blood tests and was not concerned. I felt no ill effects. But I backed off the dose. On Monday it was 100 nmol. Still no ill effects.

A RN working in a hospital is probably not getting much sunlight at all ( Especially with the current ‘Beast From The East’ weather in the UK & Europe. ) Such a person probably needs to take D3 even in her mid thirties…

Full title: “The Miraculous Results Of Extremely High Doses Of The Sunshine Hormone Vitamin D3 My Experiment With Huge Doses Of D3 From 25,000 To 50,000 To 100,000 Iu A Day Over A 1 Year Period”
by Jeff T Bowles

An unusual book. The author studies studies exhaustively and develops strategies and hypothesis that he self-tests – along with a blogosphere of others who report in – and by which he also updates and expands his findings.

Rogue in the sense of experimenting off-map yet not in respect of using all available sources of information to guide such explorations. He passes through difficulties and comes out the other side as a testimony of trusting his course and seeking evidences to support trust rather than collapse – and yet perfectly willing to retreat when necessary.

Early scientists who carved out the way that others merely follow were also willing to challenge ‘rules’ when those rules seemed questionable or falsely operating. Like the story of Goldberger and his team who demonstrated the non infectious nature of pellagra as the ‘filth squad’.

No matter what the science says, our own acts arising from our own current acceptance, bring results that we can explore, feel, experience, know and use to inform our next moment of acceptance, idea, thought and act.
Because we are unique in some respects, your result may not apply in my current situation.
But the arguments for Vit D toxicity or adverse reaction have no comparison in the scope and scale of effect as – for example – refined carbohydrates.

I watched an honourable feeling doctor in a video recommending statins along with niacin and some other additions who participated candidly in the comments – often in sympathy with critical views. But something he said caught my attention and that was that a dietary approach required discipline and for him, that seemed to mean it was pushed off into long grass of a peripheral inattention.
What we want (or think we want) is a huge factor in all that follows. The avoidance of discipline is confused with freedom, and this underlies and undermines health in every way – such as to leave sickness management to only option left in a sickening world.
(I also note no adversity on 10000 iu Vid D. I haven’t a history or predisposition to infections or illness generally, and have never (significantly) included pharma in my diet. Mostly living on ‘another planet’ relative to social norms of my times – though of course I am at home here – but who are these people!
We are all acting from our current accepted beliefs, whether fact-backed or fact-hacked, and the willingness to interact and reflect to each other is the health of cultural development.
Those who seek protection from their own desires, inhibit and suppress via ‘rationalisations’ such as to fear their own nature. The replacement of natural relations of balanced proportional expression with systems and rules of imposed order is the development of the mind from a basis in denial. As I see history, this has been fear driven need that co-opts or suppresses all else – as does the sympathetic nervous system – that becomes a habituated identity in ‘sympathy’ with a fear-driven agenda.
For some a daily 10,000 iu (ignore the bigness of iu relative to mg) of vit D (incl K3) is a fearful breach of learned safety lines. I posit that stepping beyond the old rules (in a sense of genuine exploration and while keeping an eye on the dial) – is itself a step of a different order than whether immediate or significant effects are noticed. If it is a step for oneself and not a blind emulation of others in wishy-washy hope of getting lucky.
Purpose is the alignment of desire. There is no luck involved whatsoever. But in the world of the blind following blind luck weighted by risk assessment, to ‘chance upon’ something genuine is a sense of blessing from which to grow. In that sense, doing what we want is not an imposed discipline, but the yielding of a false imposition to a natural desire.
Of course old habits die hard while we still want to in-habit them. But such a death is not a true death – so much as releasing what we thought we wanted, so as to align here and now in healthy relation with what is here – rather than viewing through a sense of lack, or fear of lack.

Bill, thank you for your suggestion. I have read enough papers by advocates of high doses and serum levels. Reading a book aimed at the general public will probably not add new perspectives.

I have even started supplementing, 1500 IU every other day last winter, more like 2000 or 5000 IU every other day (depending on whether it is the drops or the powder) this winter, and if anything, I have seens a decrease in infections, just the odd sniffle or feeling a little out of it for a few days in a row. Maybe I am in the safe regime as per the second lady.

However, I have never believed that there are one, two or ten substances that have wonder properties and should be taken in megadoses. In keeping with Paracelsus, everything is a poison, depending on the dose, and one should always consider how much of any given substance was available naturally to our ancestors.

So when I see a reasonable argument being made for an upper limit on the intake, I want to get to the bottom of it.

Your point is made well enough, but the perception of ‘mega’ dose can be manipulated by – for example introducing ‘international units’ instead of the parochial gram.
Outsourcing trust to external authorities has its own risk.

My concern is not so much to promote megadosing of vitamins or supplements, but to alert to the megadosing of toxins and toxic exposures that then deplete us of what we need to thrive, or even maintain the consciousness to discern the difference and care to choose well.

Because one poor choice makes the next that follows more easily taken.

Indeed toxic is simply an imbalance of too much. If you knew the dangers you would choose wisely, but under belief that because its passed or allowed by authorities it must be safe – and inversely, because it is frowned on by the authorities it cant really be very beneficial – we do not know the dangers – and are misled. Perhaps because we follow a mistaken Author-ity.

The belief that ignorance belongs to the past is the ignorance that hides presently.

Eric, I suggest we cannot know everything. Thus it’s very important to chose right when we chose the experts we will rely on for advice.

One we both know is DR K here.

My normal ‘process’ is to examine everything written by an expert and so come to an understanding of their insights, their biases and their blind spots. It is long & lengthy process but it yields reliable results as to .whether & how much to trust their expertise. I did this last year with Dr Kendricks blogs here for about a month while making no comments at all..Just reading, thinking and double checking for consistency with other major experts and writings.

I am unwilling to do this exhaustive again with the 2 blog writers you are provided links to. I briefly did for a while last night. And found that the advise being offered on most matters was contrary to what I have done for years.

But one small thought on vitamin D re Big Pharma : D was first researched in the 1930’s.In one instance 2 researchers took high maga doses for months( maybe 2 years ) with no adverse effects. In fact they both felt great. Shortly afterwards big pharma companies asked the USA Drug medical law agency to, change the law on D3 : to make prescription only and to be offered in tiny amounts. In fact a new measurement scale was established : “International Units” specifically for vitamin D. An IU was one millionth of a micro gram.

I wasn’t writing to your personal gratification but of course you are free to engage it at my expense. If you had nothing to say you would say nothing – but as always here with me you broadcast and invite the put-down. Personal attack is not a lack of understanding but lack of substance.

I have no need or requirement for you to accept anything I say and so I am no less clear in what I said by your pretence to understand it. You live your own acceptance in what you choose to be. But I offer a perspective from what I have grown through consistent choices that embody felt qualities of human experience. If you have not opened the territory or willingness to step beyond your own thinking, then of course it operates the filtering or ruling out of anything that would call it to question. Certainty given to our thinking is the nature of the problem – regardless how well constructed – it is not a relationship – nor can it dance.

I haven’t eaten bacon for many years, but when I last did, it was from a butcher different from the norm. The norm shrinks greatly on cooking and becomes covered in smegma.
The imbalance of power in the production and distribution of food means that the appearance of food is used to farm the population of their money, while the cultivation of sickness in farmed people milks them directly or via health insurance/NHS of money and sets the stage for culling by stealth and guile along with conditioning the stock to accept their factory managed status.
So to your point I find myself saying, there is bacon and there is bacon and they are not the same. What exactly is in our food is often much more and much less than any generic labelling.
Corruption isn’t just personal culpability and blame – but where systems become an end in themselves – and running blind, attract those who ‘work the system’ rather than ensuring it serves purpose.

“A bland vegetarian diet was believed by many to curb sexual feelings, and so Kellogg also invented Corn Flakes, and provided them at his sanitorium in Battle Creek Michigan — along with yogurt enemas and electrifying baths.”

Whats with the crapping on ‘Yanks’?
What purpose served but your own private gratification, publicly indulged?
I note that ‘crap’ is a term for body waste that has found innumerable uses in the imagination or lack thereof. Crappy behaviour is unworthy of acceptance in it own terms, but I don’t extend it to your countrymen – or even to your person – but identify a pattern of thinking.

Binra, I have lived in the USA..Worked there and traveled there as well. I acknowledge there are a lots of very pleasant, good heated Americans. But it is a big place with a very big population where various odd ‘faiths’ & ideologies have had the opportunity to flourish and on occasions even determine what is accepted in mainstream US society.

Kellog was one such in the 1890’s. He became mainstream with his corn flakes for breakfast. It became the standard American breakfast.

But there have been plenty of others. And in fact the “LDL & saturated fat cause CVD theory promoted by Encel Keys & others, is a USA grown ideology, that has gone on to become dominant not just in the USA but in all English speaking countries.

Let us draw a line under this discussion please. Moderating comments is not easy, in that everyone draws their line in a different place. I will re-iterate that my ‘rules’ are. No direct personal insults (and some people are getting close – maybe even slipped over the line). No direct adverts, and nothing that I cannot understand. And Binra has probably gone over that line a few times, but I believe his intentions are good, and you don’t have to read his stuff if you do not want to. Swearing is not needed.

My comment about Greger was made in the Vendetta blog. It was not made in this one. So it seems a bit bizarre to be discussing it here and saying it should not have been allowed.

Also note : the phrase I used about veganistic Greger was ” s**t ” That allows for a variety of interpretations….Examples are : Stat, Slat, Swat, Skat, Snot, Spot, Spit, I’m sure others here can think of more.

The single time I have become a little heated I was big enough to apologise, you should do the same Bill. It was clear what the hidden word was. I have no problem with swear words, I think they are a useful occasional part of the English language but I would not use them on a Doctor who provides a free info service which you may not happen to agree with and who is not here to defend himself.

“It takes one to know one”. I hold this to be truth beyond forms of specificity.
You cannot know of that which you are not (also) the vibration of.
Therefore the negative appreciation of another being has a correspondence within ourself.
That we hate in the other what we hate and deny in ourself is true has often been prompted to our consciousness.
Why bother in the prompting for conscious responsibility when the desire is to persist in hate and blame as if an EXPORT?
Because I know something in myself that accepts, forgives and moves past judging myself (and others) and extend it to the recognition of the same quality in others.

This is very different in intent and outcome than the vilification ‘culture’ of political correctness.
And the principle is the self-same principle of ‘war on symptom’ that can never more than disguise or repackage hate in more insidious forms – and defend the displacement against exposure to true cause.

I recall Gordon Brown’s microphone was left on after dealing with an irate voter, and in the belief he was in private he referred to her as a bigot. We all have private mythological constructs that offer a shorthand emotional expression of a larger event. But they are not appropriate to teach and learn in place of honest communication. An ‘honest’ judgement is a self-reflecting recognition of a wish things be different than they are seen truly – rather than projected as if others or events SHOULD have been different and so are assigned cause and blame for a sense of personal frustration.

This is similar to the swearing or cursing of other drivers. It works an emotional release in fantasy for unowned expectations and frustrations. If it was amplified as a public broadcast system, would we behave differently? What if on a subtle level, it does – and has real effect in the way we then experience others and our world?

We can choose or allow ourselves to be out of sync with our heart, by indulging fantasy in the mind and identifying there. How we choose to travel along the paths of our lives is as frustrating as our insistence on the fantasy of control over life. Yet coming into a present appreciation restores that a sense of control in sync with, rather than at odds with.

And yes, I meet every kind of ‘resistance’ in myself to a true acceptance of what is, as it is, and have no special powers, immunities, or absence of ‘shit’ in the sense of unwanted or conflicted self. No one can change what they areas yet unwilling to own.

I feel very clear in what I mean, but the unwillingness to own what in fact is entangled in us by the very attempt to get rid of it, operates a ‘mindset’ in search of scapegoats and red herrings. I can release this in myself when I recognize it running in myself, as judgement upon others that has something important for me about me to be conscious of, rather than asleep to.

Smartersig, I do forgive. However I do not do the ‘forget’ part.
Memory gives me the capacity to se when we are being lead round & round in circles. And that Smartersig. is what you did with your comment & links to Greger’s veganistic science..

If grger stuck to ennunciating an ethical argument for humans being vegan or vegetarian, I would not agree but respect his wish to encourage ethical diets.

However he does not. He lards his argument with lots of fake science. This does indeed deceive the many gullible in our world.
So I have no respect for Greger.

I have no idea why you think he quotes fake science any more than I would say that Prof Noakes or any of the Paleo guys promote fake science. I like to look at the balance of science then take a punt. The balance is that no one is citing research to show veggies are cancer promoting or promote heart disease but there is plenty of research that shows some of the other contecsious food cat’s may or may not cause disease.To say all of the pro one argument is good science and the con argument science is bad is a blanket statement with no back up. Whether people like his underlying message Dr Greger runs a free site with the only spin off being a book sale. You have to admire that if nothing else, because essentially that is what Dr Kendrick is doing. Presenting a perspective for free. As individuals we can then make up our own minds. Its a dangerous path when this forum starts to state what areas of research can be sited based on the overall majority of people posting. Can you not see the parrallel with other mistakes made in history when that approach to medical investigation is allowed. I do not see this forum as a vehicle for Sat fat animal protein consumers to vent their beliefs any more that it is a sole vehicle for Veggie based seekers of health.

Methinks it would be much more personally productive for you, and certainly more interesting for the rest of us on this blog, if you were to put your energies, rather, into pondering and perhaps answering the two questions Doctor Kendrick put to you.

Just a quick note on Thyroid, I know updates like this bore some people but I like to hear when people get success from a supplement. In November I tested my thyroid and all was OK except my T3 was at 51 when the normal range is 61+ (cant remember the upper off hand and dont have the print out in front of me). Pretty much since then I have been on Sea Iodine once a day. If you are interested I am using Life Extension Sea Iodine (no personal connection). Today I got my fresh check on T3 through and it was up to 71. OK I do not know for sure if its due to normal error or the Iodine but I will be continuing with it.

Can’t find part forty six, where this more properly belongs, but it is food for thought: (from the March, 2018 Natural History magazine) “Among vertebrates, evolutionary increases in social group size or social complexity often require animals to interact with, and navigate relationships with, ever larger numbers of individuals. As group size goes up, an animal’s social partners are more likely to include distantly-related, or even unrelated, individuals. Consequently, social partners often do not overlap in their evolutionary agendas. Even a quick glance at the literature on primate sociality-white-faced capuchin monkeys, baboons, and chimpanzees-suggest group infighting and nasty politics are pervasive, omnipresent, and sometimes, deadly. Even positive, affiliative social interactions-friendships and consort-ships-often take the form of alliances to ward off aggressive competitors. Sometimes, backstabbing occurs. Many social animals may be selected to to exhibit what is referred to as Machiavellian intelligence regarding group dynamics: the ability to interpret, anticipate, and counter enemy advances, and their ability to outwit rivals for personal gain. If social brains are big brains, they may result from social conflict.” (Evolutionary biologist Sean O’Donnell)

Malcolm
have a question concerning the make-up of Prokardia.
You say that L-Citrulline and L Carnitine are cofactors for the production of NO. Do they do anything more than L Arginine on its own, is there an advantage in having these two extra NO inducers?
thanks

Thank you.
I am reading a populist book on LArginine, which makes some claims for NO which I find difficult to believe. For example lowers cholesterol, permanently removes plaques, lowers blood pressure after a course of two months and this also permanently. I thought NO relaxed the smooth muscle surrounding the arteries, so these claims seem unlikely to me?

What book by who?
Lowers what exactly and by how much? Without more specificity the claims are meaningless.
There are toxic aspects to NO as well. Its all a matter of balance and timing. Generally the body IS this balance and timing unless we stress/toxify or block its function so as to seem to need to run it all ‘manually’.

Perhaps these two publications may help our understanding of the huge benefit NO plays in general health and not just cardiovascular health:
AA Francis, GN Pierce. An integrated approach for the mechanisms responsible for atherosclerotic plaque regression. Exp Clin Cardiol 2011;16(3):77-86.
and http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/99/9/1236

Binra
You asked where my question on NO came from.
The book is called” the arginine solution” by Robert Fried, C Woodson, and C Merrell
I said it was populist, that is no figures no citations. However since reading it and going back to the relevant citations in this blog I have been taking 1 gm daily and my BP both systolic and diastolic are down about 8% and are now totally within even the modern norms.
Now does anyone have anything to say on pulse pressure, the difference between the two, does it matter or is it a marketing ploy?

Somewhere above, I said I would not take arginine or citrulline as with some cancers patients are given a diet deficient in, arginine to starve tumors feeding on arginine. So, theoretically ingesting arginine/citrulline in supraphysiological doses could raise cancer risk though -of course- that’s a very crude hypothesis.
However, my blood pressure kept raising, aged garlic (kyolic), co-enzyme Q10 and magnesium did nothing, and I had to raise my dose of hydrochlorothiazide from 6,5 mg to 12,5 mg.
About a month later I added citrulline, 750 mg, 3 times a day and I estimate it lowered my blood pressure by 4 mmHg (systolic) and 3 mmHg (diastolic) at least.
More interesting is that my blood pressure always sharply rose in the evening. Now it keeps around 120/80, which can only come from the citrulline as hydrochlorothiazide never prevent the rise in the evening. Even better: If I didn’t sleep well/enough, blood pressure was always high during the day: That’s a thing of the past, too, since I use citrulline.

Also, when I when my hydrochlorothiazide dose went from 6,5 to 12,5 , I was still able to get erections but the morning erections disappeared. After adding citrulline, also the morning erections came back quickly.

Both things, improvement of endothelial function, hypertension and erections are results published in studies one can find in pubmed.

My coder is trying to persuade me to move to .net from PHP.
I have always disliked the idea because of the costs.
But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using Movable-type on various websites for about a
year and am worried about switching to another platform. I
have heard great things about blogengine.net.
Is there a way I can import all my wordpress content into
it? Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated!

I’ve enjoyed your book on doctoring data and just been reading your views on vitamins, with which I generally agree. However I think you should consider the impact of farming methods on food quality. If all you put on the crop Is N K and P, for decades, of course it will be deficient in Mg – and a lot more besides. Our food is a pale shadow of what we evolved with.

Dr Kendrick cannot provide individual patient advice over the Internet. UK General Medical Council regulations are clear that to do so would be a breach of medical standards that could result in disciplinary proceedings.

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